The place where happy people meet

Friday night's dinner at Miss Clarity's.

Many a flogger has written about Miss Clarity Cafe, where happy people meet. Should Nora or anyone else at Miss Clarity's ever get to read this, do accept my sincerest thanks for providing such a truly happy place for people like me to hang out at.

I know that in writing this entry, I risk being parrot-like, simply repeating that which has already been said by many of this much-praised cafe. So, I hereby present to you my very own reasons why Miss Clarity Cafe certainly lives up to its claim to be the place where happy people meet.

Reasons
#1 My happy friends and I met at Miss Clarity's for dinner! On both ocassions, Miss Clarity's had the effect of causing us to become happier- happier than the already happy people we are! Isn't that remarkable? And, if you have read the posts of other floggers, they were made happier too... and the other people I saw eating at Miss Clarity's? They looked really, really happy too...

#2 Miss Clarity's uses Varlhona chocolate, both in its Chocolate fondue and in its assortment of Chocolate desserts. Varlhona chocolate is very many percent cocoa solids and since chocolate encourages the production of endorphins by the brain, and endorphins are 'happy hormones', which person, who is wise enough to order a chocolate dessert, can leave Clarity's after a meal, not happier than when he sat down?

#3 Miss Clarity's is unpretentious. There is nothing haute, nothing uppity, nothing posh about Miss Clarity's, and so I am perfectly comfortable being myself there too. This is in term of its deco, furniture and Nora and gang, who sometimes make me feel like they are serving me out of their own home kitchen.

#4 Miss Clarity's has a happy chef, who cooks confidently and passionately, treating the preparation of each Chicken Ballotine, each Burger Special, not just as a task in a line of tasks to be done, a portion out of a hundred portions that have to be served in a day. It is only a chef who is passionate about the food he cooks, and probably the whole process of cooking, who is able to cause each dish to taste and look the way they do. If a chef is not happy cooking, it shows through the food.

#5 Miss Clarity's always has a nice surprise in store for me. I look forward to receiving my Garlic Crusted Dory each time, because I get to speculate if I'll get an oblong or a round plate, if the sauted veggies will be hidden under the dory of sitting by the side, if I'll get cauliflower or cucumber, if the potatoes will be mashed or roasted... Then I look forward to looking in the dessert shelves for new Chocolate creations, new nameless creations...

Addendum: "Happy" is a word that has taken on a whole universe of connotations, memories haunting and bittersweet over the past maybe two months. I wonder how is it that some mysterious part of me instinctively knew, when I used this word so many times (I'm tempted to count how many) in this post written almost two months ago. Strangely enough, the reason why this post was slated for editing instead of being posted immediately was because I felt using the word 'happy' too many times would somehow dilute the essence of its meaning and intensity of the emotion it would convey, if just used once. That's still probably true, but now I feel even more strongly than ever that what remains most important is that no words, errorneously chosen or imperfectly-expressed, would be able to authenticity of emotion really present. The heart knows best, and sometimes, that's all that really matters.