Our waiter looked significantly at us. In a slight Spanish accent he said, “this is Ignacio your Wine Steward. He will be helping you choose your wine this evening.”
We were celebrating my seventy first birthday at Tramanto at Vidanta’s Riviera Maya resort. Tramanto is open only in the evening and only from Thursday to Sunday. It is billed as a Trattoria … but it is anything but inexpensive. It shares space on the second floor of the Jade Boutique with Gong the resort’s Japanese restaurant. I walked through Gong on my way to the men’s. It was shuttered, dark, and somewhat spooky. Apparently like many other eateries at the resort it was closed during the off-season.
By the time we got to the Thursday of our week at Riviera Maya we were so done with Tacos. We took the elevator to the second floor of Jade just to scope out the restaurants. We were trying to find them when a man came up to us. He asked, “Can I help you?”
My wife said “we were just wondering if there was room in the restaurant say tomorrow?
He said, “there is plenty of room tonight. I can seat you now.”
We were hungry. I was as usual ravenous. “Sure,” we said.
He lead us into the restaurant and seated us a table for four.
Our waiter came to ask what drinks we wanted. “Just water,” we said.
“Wine?” he asked. “Maybe,” we said.
Then a few minutes later he brought Ignacio to our table. Ignacio was a large man like John Goodman in stature and girth. Over the course of the evening Ignacio transformed from Wine Steward to friend.
To be continued…
Copyright 2018 Lyle T. Lachmuth, All Rights Reserved
