Post Valentine, post Chinese New Year, our bon vivant Benjie issued a call to arms: Let’s do lunch at Red Jade!

The invitations were flashed to Fermin, Putch and Joy, Olive and Niwa, Marivic, Manny, Janet, Rennie, Vanessa, Cap and Annie, Nancy and Arthur, Evelyn, Pacita.

The lobby of Manila Hotel – as grand as history can make it – hummed with the sight and muffled sounds of people checking in. I asked Rachy if there was a special reason for the queue and he replied, “It’s like this every day.” Watching over the guests were a pair of “higantes” – giants dressed in soft cotton shirts. And of course they were Rachy’s creations, his idea of providing a touch of playfulness to the city’s oldest, grandest, most photogenic hotel.

There are many five-star hotels everywhere and anywhere, but it’s this hotel’s old-fashioned, many-splendored grandeur that makes it a standout. Even young people can feel the hush as soon as they’ve navigated the entrance and into the lobby, one gleaming with tall columns, polished tiles, lights that are as bright as they are soft, and fresh flowers. A short walk into the hotel and there’s Red Jade the Chinese restaurant. Not green, not black and not white, not purple but red, Red Jade.

The menu, courtesy of chef Soon Bing, featured two kinds of dimsum, which literally means “touch the heart,” followed by lechon with jellyfish, braised seafood soup with dried scallops and fish maw, deep-fried shredded eel with honey glaze, braised oxtail in Szechuan sauce, fresh garoupa with mango and Thai chili sauce, seafood noodles with truffle sauce, panfried tikoy and hot almond cream. As most everyone knows, a Chinese lauriat – literally, a celebration – must by tradition serve so-called auspicious dishes: thus noodles for long life, fish for prosperity, meat for growth, and sweets to augur happiness and good luck.

When I burped and looked up at the ceiling, pairs of Rachy’s red fish (made of felt) continued to “float” around the delicate chandeliers. Besides the sticky-sweet tikoy, we were allowed to take home a little prosperity plant, though not the flying fish.

Looking back, I remember when I attended a lauriat in Shanghai some years ago, the tables were no longer for 12 diners but 22.