Trellis @ Market Market, Sub-Zero Your Face

I have been a regular in this place when I was still a Metro Manila resident (which was not long ago yet). I love the “ambulance” (ambiance) and the proximity to convenient cheap eatables without being inside a mall but just steps away from it. Add in the nostalgic loyalty that once in my life, for most of my college life at Diliman anyway, Trellis has been my favorite hang-out for food and drinks, over at their original branch behind the City Hall. So, a fortnight ago or so, I was happy to learn that a high-school friend decided to host some quick get together a.k.a his birthday celebration at the restaurant. Yep, at the Market Market area inside Bonifacio Global City.

All was fine with me, until we ordered beer!

And for whatever wrath the heavens may have cast upon earth that evening… it seemed everything was directed to ensure my discomfort and inconvenience. Ah, I cant think of a ‘better negative term’, if at all there is such a thing. But yes, the kalangitan seemed to have zeroed in on me. Imagine, four of us ordering and drinking the same kind of beer, but lucky for them, mine was always an issue they even started laughing about it. Why only me and why only mine? Why dear angels why? Hu hu hu he he he!

The issue? Every time any waiter came to place my new bottle of SanMigLight, it sizzled like hell with all the contents seemingly excited to fizzle out in an icy consistency as if to say “come, eat beer halo-halo”!

At first, I let the thing do what it was doing (spurting its contents out like volcano spewing lava) though I casually told the waiter “boss, something’s wrong with your beer”. He replied with a confident “ganyan kasi sir, sub-zero kasi ang beer namin”. I had the urge to stand up and lecture him but the prim and ‘collected me’ prevailed. I was actually busy with the excited ‘kumustahan’ amongst friends who get to meet only once or twice a year. I did attempt catching the “spurt” into my mouth if only to save the damn expensive drink from spilling wasted unto my table. It was not only weird, it was foolish and short of getting myself labeled as a beer addict idiot. So, I left my first bottle to do what it was doing, and when more than half its contents have already spilt out, I drank the remaining liquid. Pusangina, the rigors of being patient talaga ‘no?!

On my second bottle, the same thing happened. On top of that, the spilled beer was flooding my part of the table and it was dripping from the wood slat down to my shoes and that of my companions. Ah, I was already a bit fuming, so I called the waiter and asked him to change the bottle with a new one that doesn’t on its own spurt icy liquid out. He did so, and I was back to the merry banter with my HS buddies. Note that I seem to have wasted quite a lot of the restaurants tissue paper from ours and nearby tables trying to wipe dry my side of the table (and the floor).

Hey, I saw the same issue at another table where the waiter, in whatever pit of intelligence he was at that moment, brought an extra glass, gave it to the drinking patron and asked him to invert his bottle on said glass so that the icy spurt wont spill to the table. That irritated my otherwise jolly pea of a brain, even if I tried my best to keep up with the crazy banter with my buddies. I considered that action crass and distasteful of a fine restaurant inside the fort. Really wanted to go to that table and say my piece to their waiter but someone in my pack egged me to forget it. Argh!

On my third bottle, it was still the same unfortunate event. And my classmates were laughing why it had to be always me. Theirs were perfectly fine. So, I stood up, walked to a waiter and asked him to get me a cold bottle of beer that is not necessarily sub-zero ek ek. He quickly came with a non-erupting beer and our merry conversations continued. Fourth bottle was the same, but I was not even turning my irritated head yet and there came the waiter to change my bottle with a new one that was not spurting its contents. Fine I thought.

When the bill came, I did what I do not usually do. I asked everyone to count and account beer bottles charged versus what we all have consumed. It was 3 bottles overcharged. So I sternly asked the waiter to drop those from the bill. Those were the bottles that I asked them to replace, and they had the nerve to charge them to us. Tangina! Good they silently agreed to removing those 3 bottles from the bill or I would have wrecked a primetime havoc at their premises.

Lesson to beer drinkers: pay only what you were able to drink.
Lesson to restaurants: do your homework, and learn your lessons well.

Previous

Next