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From the desk of Ms. Ann Abraham
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HI PZ,
So I was just
walking on the road, and went to pay my Vodafone bills. (Because I have no
money in my card-account, and so I asked my father if I could use his, and he
lent me his platinum card, and I used that to pay online, a while, probably two
or more weeks back… Well, apparently,
the card transaction did not go through, because I got one email stating that
they got the money, and the next stating that the transaction hadn’t. So I went today to pay the bills by cash
(from my father, through my mother and she gave me an extra bill over the
amount I asked her. So I had three
bills, and went sauntering out…))
I reached the
Vodafone store, and took a token, and then went to the cash-counter and stated
my numbers, and the total was more than I had imagined in my head. What a good thing my mother had given me that
extra bill. So I paid the full amount,
and sauntered out.
Was planning to
get back here, but somehow took a turn to old familiar haunts, and the coconut
man saw me, though I wasn’t planning to buy a coconut that time, just wondering
where to go sorts… And I saw two others standing there, and the coconut man was
cutting a coconut, so I waited, and to my surprise he handed me the
coconut! I was so surprised… I usually
used to buy a coconut there, on the way, so he assumed I was there for the
coconut, and gave me before I asked.
Well, I was just sauntering anyway, and had planned to ask for the brown
coconut, of which he had none, since that was what I wanted… (I though I’d
order that, so the next time, he’d have that).
But he had prepared the usual coconut, so I drank that, and then fished
in my bag for the money (which I usually paid before getting the coconut, but I
hadn’t planned to buy that coconut, so I hadn’t taken the money out… But
anyway, I fished out the money, and I handed it over, and ate the rest of the
coconut, and went my way.)
Then I saw you,
Pizza Hut, sitting there… I’d seen you so many times, and I still remembered
the allure of being in a Pizza Hut in New Zealand, and the tangy tomato sauce
on that thin pizza, and oh my GoD! What
flavours on the Pizza!
So I sauntered
across the road, and entered the haunt.
Oh, I mean, the Hut.
It looked nice… a
rest-room right at the start, was a good omen.
I visited it. (and came out of
it, too)
I looked around,
and spied a nice looking room with tables and chairs and plates and napkins and
forks and knifes, and the sugarcane sticks over the door, since it is Pongal
season here, and sugarcane sticks are a sign of that….
And I entered and
sat there… And twiddled my thumbs, and then a waitress came up the stairs, and
I hailed her, and she asked, “Dine in or takeaway?” And I said, “Dine in”. So she said, “It’s downstairs”, and I was
confused… So what were these tables and chairs for…? Oh!
Showpiece..? Oh, okay!
So I sauntered
down, and saw the desk with the computer screen to order at. And a menu lying there. So I started flipping through the menu. Then another waiter appeared… “Dine in or
takeaway..?” And I said, “Dine in”. So he invited me to sit down.
I kept the menu
and looked around. I chose one seat,
then bounced out of it, sat opposite, and moved out of that… Moved to the seat
across the room, and left that too… Went to another sofa-seat table, and moved
out of that too… Then I sat in another place, and that was that.
I wondered what to
tell the next waiter, but no one bothered me… I finally guessed why… The menu
is so wonderfully extensive, it takes quite a long time to peruse through it.
I started
perusing, and perused and perused, and then Ticked some on and ticked some off…
and I started drooling (figuratively) over it… And thought, “Oh my God! All my favorites… and I thought Pizza Hut was
all about pizzas only.. (Kept remembering that thin-crust pizza I had had in NZ
in 1981).
There was pastas
in creamy sauces, spaghetti with stuff on top, there was drinks with salt and
no sugar.. There was ginger and lime, There was just lime, There was even
Masala lemonade… Oh My God!!
So finally I ordered
the most non-vegetarian thin-crust pizza I could find, which was the “PollO
something.. “The PollO Heaven”, and sat
back to enjoy the thought of that… So many different meats on that – tikka and
sausage and what not…
So I ordered a
fresh lime with salt in soda, to try that, and asked for it not-cold (maybe
even hot might be good).
Then I could look
around, I guess, but I was drawn again to the menu, though I’d already perused
it. And I looked it up and down, and
noticed that soup came in small portions too… So I ordered the
tomato-and-basil.
Then I twiddled my
thumbs, and again tried the seasoning bottle on the table, which I must say,
was really good! I pulled one waiter and
asked, “What is in it.. Oregano leaves, chilli flakes, and …?” And he said, “Salt”. I was like, “Um, what?” Apparently that delightful concoction is just
oregano leaves, chilli ground and um, salt… (Which I later noticed, was not
just table salt (Sodium Chloride), but some yellow salt as well… Um, what is
that…?
And I kept looking
at that menu.. It was glossy, thick cardboard, with pictures, and names and
descriptions, and prices… And they all looked so alluring… And I read the
descriptions, and I thought, “Oh I wish they made this with whole wheat pasta…
then I could eat it too”.
I noticed the
tortillas with chicken in it, so I pulled another waiter who was passing by…
“What is the tortilla made of…?” And
this time he was the one who said, “Um…?”
And I pressed on, “Is it maida, is it atta..?” And he said, “Yes, yes, it is atta”. And I asked, “Corn flour..?”, and he was
adorably confused (just a boy, you see) and he said, “I’ll ask”, and he
disappeared toward what I assumed was the kitchen, and I never saw him again….
The next waiter
came and leant on the wall in front of me… I couldn’t resist, by now… So I
asked him a question too, and sent him packing too…
Finally my soda
with lime and salt arrived, with a slice of lime floating on top. I grabbed, and “Oh no! It was cold!”. I considered telling the waitress something,
but she had already disappeared…
I sipped it, ..
and okay, “It was really good!” (Though
cold, which is not um, actually acceptable, but I’ll forgive that, this time..)
After some time,
the tomato-and-basil small-portion soup arrived, and I consumed that. Then I noticed the croutons on the side. Couldn’t resist – I tried some of it, but it
was white bread. Still there was that
lovely seasoning sitting on the table just staring at me with those big
beautiful eyes, no, that was someone
else. The seasoning was sitting just
where I’d kept it, so I put the remaining crouton in the soup-bowl and dusted
it with seasoning, and then I got zealous, and dumped the seasoning in, and
poured in the tomato sauce from the tomato soup bottle on the table, and voila! I had more soup….! I ate that too… And left some too… And then ate that too..
After some time
the “PollO Heaven” pizza arrived. And to
my surprise, there were just a few bits of meat on it.. “IS this POLLO
heaven?” Oh dear, I was disappointed. Maybe I should have ordered the meatballs on
the skewer instead. (Somehow, people are
very stingy with meat… never get enough).
Anyway, I ate that
too.. maybe the meat would add up if I
ate the whole pizza, so I did…
Called for the
bill, and oops! There was humoungous tax
on it, rounded off to the nearest hundred.. Or that’s what my final bill amount
was – Rs. 600.
So I paid that,
and put a little tip too.. And closed that folder, finished the last of the
pizza, and then left the building… I mean, the Hut.
We stepped out on
the road, and sauntered back.
So that was my
experience, and this is my feedback:
1. Please make the pizza of whole-wheat
flour. In fact the pasta and the
tortillas too..
2. Please make the cheese optional. I topped my last piece of pizza with
slatherings of tomato sauce, and that looked just great. Maybe the white sauce on pizzas too would be
a good idea. (Don’t get me wrong – once
upon a time, the more cheese, the better.
I would even order double cheese, just to um, get more…. But times are changing. I have pity on the calves who don’t get their
milk, so I stopped dairy products – milk, cheese, curd, yogurt,… the whole
thing).
3. When in India, do Indian sounds good,,
except that I had the “Pollo Heaven” which had Indian versions of the meatball,
and I suppose I should once again say, “Hail Basil” And the Italian version of
the pizza. After all, if I wanted to eat
Indian food, I would go to a Punjabi dabba, or a Keralite resataurant, or a
Saravana Bhavan, or something like that.
4. But the Pizza Hut menu had all my
favourites – even
a. the peanut-butter looking pie (which was
actually banana and caramel – um, can you make it of peanut-butter and jelly
layers, please)
b. the smoothies with berries (but I’m off
milk products now, so maybe just berries and fresh Stevia leaves for
sweetening,, “Hail Stevia”)
c. The chocolate-cocoa-coffee drink, but
please use whole fresh berries, ground and then boiled, hold off the milk, and
add some Stevia leaves for sweetness.
d. And
e. Well, to tell the truth, I did ask them if
I could take a menu home … (It looked so good, and they gave me the menu-flyer,
but um, it has only the pizza listings, and so my musings have to stop here,
because … I’ve just been dreaming about what I saw on that menu there…That’s a
hint for : “Please update your menu-flyer that you drop in people’s houses, so
we know that there are all those wonderful pastas and drinks and desserts to be
had….!”)
5. Last question, I suppose – What is a
Mojito?
Regards,
Ms. Ann Abraham.
2014-01-16-18-00
Annanagar West,
Chennai – 600040,
India.!
P. S. I noticed
the waiter’s outfits – If you put an apron on them, make it a wrap-around,
please. The apron looks as if the um,
bottom is left uncovered…. Which it
wouldn’t look like if the apron wasn’t there….
Hence, if you put an apron on them, do it completely.
P. P. S. For the filling of the edge of the pizza,
consider this – make a long thin sausage of deer intestine cover – fill it with
either a non-vegetarian, or a vegetarian stuffing, and then lay the sausage all
around the edge of the pizza, fold the dough over it, put the topping, and bake
it, and then voila! When someone gets a
slice, there will be a piece of sausage on the side (of the pizza slice)!!
Why deer intestine
cover..? – because pig’s intestine is not to be eaten, because the pig is not a
food animal, as per Leviticus 11 – it has cloven hoofs, but does not chew the
cud, and though the beef-animal has both cloven hoofs and chew the cud, it is
of the order of a sacrificial animal, not to be eaten lightly, and so the
ordinary meats that can be eaten at every meal are the other (animals with both
cloven-hoofs and which chew-the-cud, like the deer, the antelope, the gazelle
and the hart).
2014-01-17-16-13
So this is what I
want from a pizza, please:
A whole-grain base
And then a
complete choice of toppings, all being optional, from the cheese to the
veggies, to the non-veg.
A separate charge
for each topping – may be the same, may be the different, all the same to me…
depends on the cost of each ingredient, the transportation cost (whether
local-bought or imported from another country, etc….)
And then of
course, that lovely seasoning is already on the table, so I’ll just dump tons
of it on my hot pizza, and then I’m done.!
Cheers! And bon appetite!
My order was
accurate – Yes, I ordered what I wanted to try.
My food looked
appealing – The lime-soda with salt with the slice of lime floating on top
definitely looked appealing. The
small-order tomato-basil-soup looked good.
The croutons were um, okay, I guess.
The “Pollo Heaven” had only tiny bits of meat on it, and my heart sank
right to my boots, I mean, somewhere down – I love meat, you see… which is why
I ordered the “Pollo heaven” – it promised a paradise of meat to me, on the
menu, but … well, we’re on earth, … what can I say..? Yes, please ask the waiter to ask if we want
more meat on it… hmmm, Yes, I should
have done that…
My food was served
at the perfect temperature – The lime-soda-with-salt was cold, when I had asked
for not-cold (but maybe “cold” was all they heard), and the “Pollo Heaven” was
warm, not hot, maybe because they were waiting for me to stop perusing and
drooling over the menu cardboard…
My food tasted
great – The lime-soda-with-salt was fantastic.
The tomato-basil was good, and the “Pollo Heaven” – ditch the meat
tikka, and load more sausage, please…!
