I felt like a terrible brother for forgetting Jeanni’s birthday. Guiltily I thought “she threw you your first surprise party and you could not even remember the date to return the favor?” In addition, Jeanni was going to hold the dinner at a sports bar. There was no way that any sister of mine was going to be celebrating her birthday in such a classless fashion. At that point, I decided that I needed to plan a surprise birthday dinner.
This birthday dinner was especially important because Jeanni had been feeling a little down recently due to all her friends leaving. I saw the dinner as a way to get her to smile again, so it was crucial that things went according to plan. However, from the onset there were problems. While walking back to my apartment, I had thought up the idea of asking the Asia MBA students to send in video birthday wishes for Jeanni. I thought it would be a touching gesture for Jeanni to see her friends wish her a happy birthday. Unfortunately, after sending out the email to all the Asia MBA students requesting videos; Varun, who I had bounced the gift idea off of before sending out the email, talked to Gift and they collectively decided it would be too awkward for Jeanni. Consequently, they were not going to partake in the idea, effectively killing it. This forced me to send out another email, asking people to do the next best thing, which was to call in the birthday wishes during the surprise dinner.
Thankfully, the logistics for the dinner started off more smoothly. I reached out to Akhil and John, to help me plan the dinner since they were both good friends with Jeanni. Finding the restaurant was a breeze once I decided on Italian food. I settled on Bella Napoli, a charming restaurant by the look of the pictures and reviews I found online. Figuring out where to get the cake was a little more difficult and after a little searching on an expat forum, I ended up choosing Mon Reve. I came very close to ordering a cake from Mon Reve online, but at the last minute decided that I wanted to try a slice first before investing in a whole cake. Not to mention, I had not even reserved a table at Bella Napoli yet, so where was I going to have the cake delivered?
The next day, I woke up bright and early at 10am with only two things on my mind; getting a reservation and ordering a cake. Getting off at the Shaanxi Nan Lu subway station, I made my way to 1250 Huahai Lu and to my surprise found that it was the address of Whisk, another cake shop I had read about. Realizing that I had mixed up my addresses, I decided to walk into Whisk anyway because I had made the hour long commute. Initially, my plan was to try out a piece of cake before buying it, but after seeing that one slice was 50RMB, I cheaped out and decided to take the risk of ordering a whole cake. Whisk only makes chocolate cakes, and not the light and fluffy mousse kinds, but the heavy, fudgy, dark chocolate kind that I was not too crazy about. However, I remembered that Jeanni loved dark chocolate and decided to just run with it. Expecting nine people to show up, I ordered their huge 10 inch dark chocolate cake. As a joke, I requested that “Happy 28 25th Birthday Jeanni” be written on the cake, which took a bit of effort because the waiter’s English was a bit lacking. After ordering the cake, I called in a reservation for nine at the Bella Napoli and got it without a hassle. Cake check! Reservation check! It looked like everything was falling into place.
Throughout the entire planning process, I kept John and Akhil informed about my progress, believing that communication was the key in maintaining the element of surprise. I repeatedly stressed that this was a surprise dinner in my texts to them. Everything was going according to plan, I had Jeanni believing that I had made reservations at the Camel at seven o’clock, but then suddenly I get a strange text from her about a venue change to an Italian restaurant and that I should check my email. However, before I received Jeanni’s email, I saw that John had sent me something. John’s email contained a chat log between him and Jeanni, where he told her to change the venue to Bella Napoli! Sure enough, that is exactly what Jeanni did. Incensed, I picked up the phone, called Crystal and ranted about this recent development in very colorful language. When I texted John about why he just ruined the surprise he said that he thought the surprise was the occasion not location. I would like to point out that the “occasion” was Jeanni’s own birthday.
A little table banging and loud cursing later, I went into damage control mode. First, I tried to tell Jeanni to change the venue back to Camel, saying that I had been looking forward to go there. That failed miserably when Jeanni assured me that we would go there after dinner. Next, I called Bella Napoli and told them to cancel Jeanni’s reservation, but the curious thing was that they told me I was the only reservation for that night. Some back and forth questions about cancelling reservations got me the owner’s number because the wait staff could barely speak English. That’s when I called owner and explained to him my situation, where he agreed that if Jeanni were to call in he would tell her that the restaurant was fully booked. I also tried to get him to waive the corkage fee, but he would not budge on that. Excitedly I text John about this new development and unexpectedly he in turn tells Jeanni that the restaurant is fully booked. It was a huge relief when Jeanni sent out another mass text switching the venue back to Camel. My plan was back on track.
On Jeanni’s birthday, I nervously waited for things to unfold. I took the subway back to Whisk, pick up the cake, then realize that I probably wanted to get flowers without dragging a huge cake around. I rush to get flowers, hail a cab back to Whisk, grab the cake and arrive at Bella Napoli a good twenty minutes before the dinner is supposed to begin. I had told everybody to meet up at 6:30pm and instructed John to get Jeanni to the restaurant at 6:45pm, allowing time for the inevitable late people. Crystal had already cancelled earlier in the day so the dinner was down to eight people. Akhil was supposed to be coming with Jeanni’s Chinese tutor and the tutor’s boyfriend, except Akhil arrived late and alone. Turns out the tutor had cancelled at that morning. In his texts, John told me Jeanni would immediately realize the surprise as soon as he told the cab driver what intersection to go to, but I knew better and I told John to just keep telling Jeanni that they were going to Camel. When Jeanni finally arrived, she was shocked to see me and Akhil at the restaurant, the surprise had worked!
I had everything nicely laid out...
...but then I had to move once I realized only six people were coming
The cake came out nicely...
...but much to my chagrin Jeanni had to cut it her way
Dinner ended up being only the four of us, as John’s girlfriend got off work late and a person thought that the dinner was next Friday. The food itself was great, the bottle of wine that Jeanni chose was a good pick and when the cake came out she was absolutely delighted. Everybody loved the cake, especially Jeanni. The owner even gave us four shots of some amazing schnapps on the house! After dinner, we went to Camel where our group doubled in size. It was a lot of fun taking turns buying each other rounds while playing pool and foosball. When we left Camel, things had worked out so well that I even forgave John a little bit.
More friends joined the party at the Camel
We ended up at the tutor’s apartment, drinking and playing silly little category games. Jeanni fell asleep on the couch and we finally decided to call it a night at 3am. I walked Jeanni back to her apartment and she thanked me warmly for everything. Her genuine smile, which I had missed these last few days, told me that despite all that went wrong, I had succeeded in making her birthday special. And that is really all that I was aiming for.
And Jeanni ended the night laughing
-muffinman
