A search of Hanoi hotels, for example, let me see that some places offer amazing-looking welcome platters of fruit; others do not.
Some days, locals would chase the crew off, and other days, welcome them with platters of food.
Small piles of salad dotted around the platter offer welcome cool relief from the chilli.
WHAT other city, after being half-drowned and left to starve, foiled by bureaucracy and attacked by the auto-immune disease of rampant crime, could stagger to its feet to welcome visitors with a platter of oysters on the half shell and a rousing brass band?
Stylish Le Chansonnier (Calle J 257 between Linea and 15; 00 53 7 832 1576) offers delicious duck in orange reduction (13 cucs/£8) as well as one of the city's best dessert platters – a welcome change from the Cuban norm of bland chicken, rice and beans.
You may have an occasion where the script calls for a bran muffin on a white plate, and people from the props department show up with a bran cake in the shape of Santa Claus sitting on a silver platter that says "Welcome to Denmark" on it.
After Nigeria's interim leader returned his passport "on a gold platter", Soyinka found his welcome "overwhelming.
The reasons are apparent in the unforced good cheer of the voice at the other end of the reservation line, in the easy welcome of the hostesses, in the giveaway antipasto platter on your table.
Rooms are basic but Antonia's bountiful platters of food, coffee and warm welcome make up for that.
It may be buttressed by new ideas of democracy, but it is still very much dominated by the centuries-old customs and swagger of tribal leaders, quick to welcome outsiders with offers of sweet chai and platters of kebab and chicken but capable of swift acts of justice that can supersede those of any court.
