Chasing Pink

Hello, Friends!

"Sip slowly," I admonished Chris. "That's very expensive champagne."

"Yes. HK$20 per sip. And," he added, "we're drinking it in front of the Bridges Street Refuse Centre."

Valentine's is a bad date night. Restaurants are packed shoulder-to-shoulder and a la carte menus are usually replaced with overpriced sets. Whilst I was looking at one SoHo restaurant's Valentine's menu, my eyes grew as large as duck eggs and my mouth dropped to the floor.

"It's great value," the manager justified the HK$1,000 per person price tag. "Try cooking that same meal at home. You can't even buy the ingredients for that price."

I walked out.

Much has been speculated about the power of the "Pink Dollar." It's like some sort of unicorn - a Rainbow Brite - that must be captured on the way to unimaginable riches. After all, gay people have non-traditional families, they never have children, they have high disposable income, blah blah blah.

That's true about some gay folks. OK, that's probably true about most gay folks. But the real reason gay people have extra cash to burn is because they're extra-clever with how they spend their cash, and hunny, they won't blow it on your face 'til they're convinced that you're worth their wad. (Oooh, I enjoyed writing that bit.)

So Chris and I ended up at Ganga's Fine Indian Cuisine, which, despite an uninviting entrance (it descends down a cave-like chamber sans any host or hostess to greet guests), turned out to be a pleasant experience. The interiors were a tasteful off-white wash, service was attentive without being cloying, and food was terrific. After all, Ganga's is a reincarnation of Gunga Din's, which once-upon-a-time earned a Michelin nod.

Chris and I ordered onion pakora, rice pullao, Kashmiri naan, chicken masala, lamb vindaloo and palak paneer. And like the proper gay boys we were, we washed it all down with a pint each of Carlsberg. The bill came to  a princely sum of HK$565, inclusive of 10% service charge.

We were happy - and apparently, four other gay couples were, too, because Ganga's captured the mythical Rainbrow Brite on Valentine's Day without even trying. It's such a treat to spend Valentine's surrounded by "family."

It's all about value for money - something that FINDS, Aqua, Tivo, and now - Ganga's - have unlocked.

Since we still had some Valentine's cash burning in our pockets, we decided to stop for drinks and dessert at Oolaa on our way home.

That HK$190 +10% service charge glass of champagne we were sipping in front of a garbage dump site?

It was Bollinger, dahlin'.



With Affection,
James

P.S.
I'm "Chasing Pink," too Chris' lips. Yum.