Black Forest Cake with Mock Cream
Here at the hotel we are staying at, they love to celebrate your birthday with you, which is nice…
Falling in February, husband’s birthday was the first one to be enjoyed. I asked the staff at the front desk if they could advise me where to get a good birthday cake and the lovely Abinaya said that they had already arranged a cake and would deliver it on the day. Wonderful, I thought. Sorted.
That night, there was a knock at the door. The entire marketing staff were there with a black forest, mock cream cake and a present. They came in and sang happy birthday. My husband deflected the attention on to Millar and the staff got confused and sang happy birthday to him and gave him the present and then they fed Millar a piece of cake by hand. This is the custom here. I have seen photos of the staff hand feeding other guests cake and it’s quite strange to me. It even looks awkward in photos.
On Millar’s birthday, we had arranged our own cake, but they still came up with the black forest mock cream cake and singing happy birthday. Millar loved it. This time there was no hand feeding.
By the time my birthday rolled around I was wise to this tradition and I left up the “do no disturb” sign all day. But the simple act of ordering Chinese alerted the staff to the fact that being disturbed was negotiable so they called the room, told my husband they had a package and came in with the black forest mock cream cake.
This was after 9pm. I had had my dinner and was on my 2nd glass of birthday wine. My pants were rolled up and I was suffering from a red wine hot flash and looking gorgeous in my sweaty after dinner red wine glow. I was not ready for guests.
Also, at that time of night I guess there wasn’t a lot of staff around because the people there to sing to me were the night porter, the night shift house-keeping guy – who took a houskeeping call on his mobile in between singing and being awkward – and the gym guy.
I don’t like being the centre of attention at the best of times, but even more so when I look like crap and when it’s awkward. and I did, and it was.
Thank fuck there was no hand feeding.
This post was hilarious! Loved it! Only wish you had some photos of all the awkward moments lol…
p.s. I think I would find it strange to be hand fed cake by strangers too! Nice that they go to such effort though
oh wow. me too. I may have some from Millar’s birthday but that was the least awkward of all because he enjoyed it.
Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious!
I would have killed to have been there to see you “what the fuck are you doing?” face
I wish the flies on the wall had blogs
Who’s a lucky girl, then? Gotta love these cross-cultural experiences
yeah. lucky lucky me. At least I can blog about it.
Love it. I think birthday cake feeding should be enforced in our household from now on, especially after several glasses of wine. Cheers to that!
Hilarious Toushka, I can just imagine it all as tho’ I was a fly on the wall, very entertaining!!!
That is very funny! Happy birthday! x
Oh! No, no, no! I would have died! So funny. Imagine if they’d tried to feed you!
The only hand-feeding I’d allow is from my lil girl haha.. it was rather sweet of them though
the cake that is. not the hand-feeding!
Ai @ Sakura Haruka
While I’d appreciate the free delivery of a cake, I really wouldn’t want strange people singing to me, and if they tried to hand feed me cake they would probably never bring me cake again. What an odd custom!
That was very funny! I was cringing whilst reading. Hand feeding! Who would have thought…!
Lol! I had a good chuckle at this one. Most important question, did the staff sing in tune ???
That hand feeding thing is w-e-i-r-d…
That is such a cute and weird tradition! I think it comes from a nice place but in reality it is definitely awkward.
I really am not a fan of the birthday singing unless it’s at a big birthday bash, or of course – for kids. My least favourite is the work place birthday singing. We all feel awkard singing and the person being sung to looks awkward. It’s as if everyone can’t wait for it to end, but we keep doing it anyway. What’s with that?
Nice that they bother with all that, really, but goodness me! It really would be awkward!