TRAVEL | Eat drink Brangelina

I confess. When the Jolie-Pitts toured Saigon on Thanksgiving last year the story that was published in the paper was much less informative than it might have been – and I had everything to do with that. No sooner had I seen the photos of the Jolie-Pitts’ night in Saigon than I made out the neon blur in the background: Temple Club! They had dined at the atmospheric temple-turned-restaurant that was on my to-go list for Saigon! I didn’t want the whole world following in their starry footsteps and jamming the restaurant, not during my vacation in Vietnam. I had to not do my job. Usually I am a conscientious celebrity gossipmonger, squeezing more breathless specifics into a story than anyone needs or wants to know; that day I didn’t breathe a word about Temple Club as I assembled the Jolie-Pitts article.

But I came home and told Bak, who told Fei, who told our cousin, Young Master Y, and so it was that by the time the clan did lunch at Temple Club, on New Year’s Eve, Y had told his Jolie joke umpteen times, saying in a sad stalker’s voice, “Can sit on Angelina Jolie’s chair?”

Boys don’t talk, you know. Not the boys. They repeat half-funny refrains, bark when they are annoyed and grunt when they are amused. When I am with the boys, reciting lines from Stephen Chow films is communication. For example, if somebody says, “英文?” it’s a cue for somebody else to say, “英文, 我來! A呀, B呀, C呀, OK!” (It’s OK, you either know the movie or you don’t.)

But back to Temple Club, the old-world romantic restaurant with the high ceiling, exposed-brick walls and tapestries, as charming as nothing we would ever see in Singapore. Except time seemed to stand still too in the kitchen. The food was so slow, Bak, then Pa, were sound asleep by the end of lunch. We cancelled the final course, woke them and came away.

But Bak had to know – “Where did Brad Pitt sit?”

The waitress answered, “At the window.”

For his fearless question, however, the boy got growled at for being shamelessly star-struck. “I didn’t say Angelina Jolie, whaaat, I said Brad Pitt.” More growling.

So I had to speak up for my kind, “Whaaat? Good reporter, whaaat.”