I never really had my birthday celebrated, but once when I was a student many years ago, my friends considered our "eating out" as the celebration. We had this place which I didn't remember the name that we often stopped by to feed our empty stomach after long journey from campus. My university is located 32 km far from the city, daily we took bus from campus to the "downtown" - from IP to Dika ..hehe- So, this small eating place was in Dika shopping center area, their specialization was the local Palembang-nese dishes. Some of my friends were from other provinces and our favorite was the mie celor.
It's very common here that while you are eating you will be entertained by pengamen or "street musician" who sing you popular songs from famous singer, at the end of the shows the musician will hand you empty candy plastic bag for your appreciation, some coins will do well.
One day, we - almost 7 or 8 girls I think - were eating at that place on my treat. Not for long, a young man who apparently a street musician came in with his guitar and his direct destination was our table. He was obviously an amateur and he didn't know what situation he was about going to enter by picking our table.
Just before he started singing his song, my friends said that he should be singing our request song and my friends would pay him more. Hesitate at the beginning he finally agreed to the request. You know what song my friends wanted him to sing ? The Happy Birthday song, dedicated for me ! ...ooh..no...please not in public ...hehe. Lucky me, he didn't know any happy birthday song, he was thinking then smiling then continued with awkward laugh but never started the real song. I think he was nervous or something. His best try was few lines of "happy birthday to you...." but my friends were kind & generous people, for his effort they gave him a bit more than just coins. And as a gift, I got John Grisham's book - the painted house - which fully covered with signatures on the first page, well....not his, but my friend's signatures.
A big fire ruined Dika shopping center and I never went to that area for few years. Until 2 weeks ago, we dropped one of senior officer to the branch office in front of the shopping center. The Dika building is still ruined with black wall decoration, but people already use the building for their business. And I finally know the name of that eating place, they moved about 3 doors from their original place, but It's still Lily.
Type of dishes you could find at Lily ;)
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