Scene Report 10/4

Non-Fiction

It’s a Saturday night and adventure is calling.

“Gideon,” says adventure. “Go to Michelada House.”

At Michelada House, I meet Leo Lasdun. The restaurant is huge, empty, and overlit.

“How did you find this place?” asks Leo.

“A friend of a friend posted about it on the dining app Beli,” I say.

Our drinks and dinner come out within minutes.

We discuss our literary careers and the literary careers of others. The others are doing badly, we surmise. We are also doing badly. But we have Micheladas.

A Michelada is a beer cocktail. Generally, the beer is Modelo or Corona, because those are Mexican beers and it is a Mexican drink. The glass beer bottle is submerged neck-down in a well of lime juice and tequila and hot sauce and sugar. Sometimes there are other flavors—such as mango, which we both had. The rim of the glass is garnished with tajin, and a straw is provided, making the tajin useless. As you drink, the beer slowly drains from the bottle, replenishing the Michelada like an IV bag. It is a drink that gets you drunk.

Between our first and second Micheladas, fifty people are seated at Michelada House. The lights dim. Five wall karaoke monitors turn on and a singer comes out to work the floor. People cheer. Things get lively fast.

Chaos reigns at Michelada House. The servers bus out huge plates of food. The famous 40-centimeter quesadilla. The grasshopper tacos. The hamburguesa. Leo notes that one family has ordered a second round of entrees. A birthday table is set up. A middle-aged man is given a sombrero, a shot of tequila, and a Michelada the size of a dog house. The birthday Michelada comes with three different kinds of beer.

The singing is loud and in Spanish. Based solely on tone—I am not fluent—it seemed to mainly concern love and devotion. At one point, the floor singer directs a ballad my way. Her arm is held out to me in longing or, perhaps, accusation. My face turns red in cross-cultural confusion. “Do you know what she said?” asks a woman. “No,” I say. She laughs. So do I. Our second round of Micheladas arrives. I am happy, I think. I love Micheladas.