Philippines: Pints with Pints

What did you do for Saint Patrick’s Day this year? Oh, me? I spent mine with Leprechauns.

Well, maybe that depends on how you define ‘Leprechaun.’ If you definite it as Merriam-Webster does, as “a mischievous elf of Irish folklore usually believed to reveal the hiding place of treasure if caught,” then my account is slightly inaccurate. If you replace ‘elf’ with ‘Hobbit’, ‘Irish’ with ‘(J.R.R.) Tolkienian’, and ‘reveal the hiding place of treasure if caught’ with ‘hold the key to saving Middle Earth’, the definition now becomes “a mischievous Hobbit of Tolkienian folklore usually believed to hold the key to saving Middle Earth,” and my account can be justified.

The Hobbit House: Pints Served by Pint-Sized Filipinos since 1985. Literally, all the staff are midgets (or ‘little people’, or whatever is P.C. these days). You’re waved down in streets outside by midget doormen, you’re taken to your table by midget hosts, your order is taken by midget waiters, and midget barmen pour your pints, all in a bar based on a Shire Alehouse. Bands play on a stage in front of a giant Hobbit mural. Dirty plates and glasses seemingly disappear as a tiny pairs of hands sweep above the table-tops.

What more perfect day to go to such a pub than Saint Patty’s Day? The Shire turned into an Irish pub for the weekend. Our green pints of Guinness were delivered by midgets in all green and leprechaun hats.

Just to make things clear, I’m the only one sitting down in the above picture.