So, the Lady is quite grouchy again today. Apparently, the head chef of our favorite local Chinese restaurant (that we order takeouts from quite frequently) had decided to take a day off and we the unsuspecting, just happened to make the mistake of ordering from it today itself. Resulting in, of course, that heart-sinking feeling of near fatal disappointment which kills in you all the fondness that you had towards that particular dish or that particular restaurant. Its like hearing one of your favorite songs day in and day out on your iPod and then going to a concert and hearing it being majorly effed up by the band. Sigh............
This particular restaurant is something that we had grown to love over the years. Its super customer-friendly, express service, the food is yummy and affordable and most importantly, the food has acquired that wonderful homey sort of feeling that comes only with years and years of familiarity. And you never really get bored with the food and best of all, it has never reduced its quality. What with the fluctuating economy of the country these days and the restaurants reducing the portion sizes, getting more and more stingy with the amount of proteins, vegetables, etc that they use in the dishes and placing ridiculous prices on the menu cards and all, this particular restaurant has stayed true to its customers throughout all these years. Which still attracts the same customer base which it attracted five years ago and the number just keeps on increasing. Being true to your customer and loving what you do has its advantages you see.
With all these plus points to its credit I know I shouldn't be grouching about just one disappointing meal but this post is has the noble intention of merely making the point that the customer knows when the chef had changed. Because we knew at the very unearthing of the parcels that it was not the same. The usual rice that we get from it is cooked to perfection and gleams up at you like little tiny pearls once you open them up but today, the rice looked grainy and crushed at the very outset of it. It was, indeed very grainy and scandalously under cooked. Plus it had these large (and I mean LARGE) lumps of limp, watery rice stuck together in clots which just drove away your appetite at just one bite. One thing I really used to love about this particular fried rice is their amazing textures. The rice was nice and not too wet, gluggy OR greasy, the vegetables fresh and crunchy while the pork has been incorporated in the rice in a rather clever way. They just used the fatty part of the pork so that when you chew on a mouthful of rice, these juicy, succulent particles of fat just explode in your mouth giving you this plethora of flavors and lubrication that is essential in getting the comparatively dry rice down your system. But today, the meat particles had been burnt to cinders and you can practically feel them falling apart in your mouth like little blocks of charred carbon. They had used the same sort of ingredients today alright, but only thing, the earlier juicy, succulent and flavorsome pieces of fatty pork had been so overcooked that they had become all rubbery and inedible. It honestly felt like chewing pieces of tasteless, insipid leather. Such a waste.
Not to mention the chicken bones and the overdose of ajinomoto. You just cringe as you bite in to huge balls of this particular flavor enhancer (?) in the clumped up rice and you can very well see the hair on your arms and legs stand on their ends. Woe be gone to whoever discovered this horrendous creation called ajinomoto which most people in a food industry laden with careless, lazy cooks seem to think is the best thing that happened to them since microwave pizza. To say nothing of the profusion of chicken bones which almost performed dental surgery on my gums. I still shiver at the thought of it.
I know that I am a rather harsh food critic, (I've often been told that) but its just that I hate to see such beautiful ingredients being misused, abused and ill treated and it just breaks my heart. Like I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, food need to be treated with love and only then will they treat you back with love (refer to Newton's 2nd law on motion : For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton had, after all, said quite a few things which makes sense) which is true to love, care, food and everything else I suppose. Except karma and Wicca where the reaction comes boomeranging back to you threefold, but that's another post for another day.
Just went downstairs to make myself a cup of coffee but was quite disappointed to find the instant coffee all glued up together in one big mush in the bottle. Its really annoying when that happens and you can't really keep em powdery for too long once you open it. I've heard that instant coffee is not "real" coffee but its sure as hell easy to make. Its what they serve on planes, although it takes two or more packets of cream and sugar just to make it even slightly drinkable. I just hate it when they serve coffee on long flights. Keeps you up during the whole flight when you might as well have a sound sleep to avoid feeling jet lagged for a whole day after you've had landed. Nothing beats the good ol local Harischandra coffee I tell you. That's the real deal.
Getting back to the restaurant disappointment story, we later on found out that since there was nobody to cook in the kitchen that day, it was the cashier himself that had gone in to the kitchen and whipped up the dishes. All the more reason that one should stick to one's designated profession eh? Anyways, I just wish they had warned us, what with us being loyal customers for as long as we and them can remember and all. Well, one spoilt dish cannot spoil years and years of great dishes which earned them our unflinching loyalty. Its once again like your favorite band not living up to your expectations during one particular performance. You stay loyal nevertheless. Or the little mistakes that a loved one makes or that one little mosquito bite on an otherwise terrific night out. We humans (at least some of us) have incredible self healing powers. Or is it just our faith and sense of loyalty that lends it to us? Either way, you just learn to forgive and forget and move on with your faith like you always do. And that is how it should always be. You move on :)
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