Latin music everywhere

June 15, 2007

Eight people at Mai Thai for 8:40. I didn't have anything to do with organizing it - nothing to do with picking the restaurant or inviting people, which is just fine with me. I had a reasonable guess about who would be there (and I guessed correctly). I was last to arrive even though I was only about 10 minutes late. By entering via back entrance, I managed to take Mimi by surprise when I took the last open seat to her left. Seating arrangement in clockwise order starting from Mimi was Euvian, Natalie, Sergio (opposite Natalie), Rajiv, Cyrille, Zern (opposite me) and me.

The service at Mai Thai was a bit slow - it took a while to get our orders in and our food arrived nearly an hour after I arrived - around 9:40. People who ordered starters before everyone arrived sounded a little smug about having done so. Food was very good though or so said a number of people seated near me. The closest thing to a complaint came from Mimi who said there was too much chicken in her chicken salad. Because of fairly high level of background noise, I was limited to talking mostly to Mimi, Zern and to less degree Cyrille.

After settling the bill, we decided to stop by Fountain Inn for some drinks instead of heading directly for Salsa dancing. Funny thing was that Salsa followed us to Fountain Inn. There was a live DJ at the Fountain Inn, and about 10 minutes into our stay there he put on Acid by Ray Barretto. It was hilarious. Rajiv decided to dance with Euvian for this song. After couple more songs, the DJ put on something that sounded a bit like Merengue to me but to some others like Cumbia - this song led to Mimi leading Euvian to Cuban Salsa moves. During the course of a under an hour, there was another Salsa/Mambo (a bit fast) as well as Boogaloo/Cha Cha. Some people joked that we should bring some more dancers to this place another time. Haihan joined the group during this hour.

Between all that, we did not get to Club Salsa until nearly midnight - sans Natalie, who could not be convinced to come with us despite the presence of her favorite dance partner Rajiv being with us (he's the best!). The crowd at Club Salsa included Johnny, Serap, their new trainee (I should learn her name at some point) and their friends as well as Pauline (I realize that this isn't exactly her name, but there's no pressing need to correct it), Andrea, Lorraine and a good number of people whose names I have not learned, etc (I'm hoping to get off this name-fest phase of writing - it's getting gratuitous). Steve (one of nicest X-body lead tonight not already named) arrived even later than us - possibly with a friend I didn't recall seeing before.

The music bounced from typical to a bit hectic to nice and fairly mellow. Or maybe I decided to treat my dances as more relaxed affair after a somewhat hectic start. Euvian was put out of the action fairly early after getting stepped on by some guy. I didn't dance much with Mimi until much later although we managed to get a Cha Cha in at the end of the evening - I feel that I'm definitely getting fairly comfortable with Cha Cha doing simple and limited number of moves - definitely easier than Salsa/Mambo On2. Mimi said she prefers Cha Cha over Bachata - I agree (not saying I won't be at the Tony Lara thing). These days Cha Cha is often the highlight of an evening and not only because I think it's a stepping stone towards getting better dancing On2.