Nice, isn’t it?
All these new dining out options springing up all over Chennai these days.
Chennai-ites, you can now consider doing South-East Asia, or maybe China, perhaps Japan, Italy, the Mediterranean, or drift towards Punjab, or go Simply South or pick from an array of bewildering fusion …and that’s just on one short-ish street.
In a bid to stay aligned with this current culinary adventure zeitgeist, a bunch of senior citizens decide that they too shall visit one of these new places their adult children, and in some cases, their budding-into-adulthood grandchildren, are talking about.
And, predictably, place their collective feet in trouble straight away.
One reason being the lighting – or lack of it.
‘Why are all these places so dark?’ Senior One wonders, blinking hard.
Sure enough -‘Offf…ow, ow, ow’, he goes, his toes having collided with a chair leg, all sharp corners and pokey protuberances, for some strange designer reason.
‘Be careful, no? Always hitting yourself against something,’ snaps his loving spouse, Senior Two, oozing wifely concern.
The frightfully young maitre d’, dressed in a black T-shirt several sizes too small for him, and silvery trousers, ushers them to their table – or so he thinks.
Senior Three takes one look, then stops short so abruptly a passing waiter nearly spills around ten sparkly flutes of something orangey-pink and bubbly all over him.
‘Don’t like sitting in the middle of the restaurant.’ Senior Three declares, ‘Like being in a traffic intersection. Too much coming and going this way that way.’
‘Every time’, his wife, Senior Four, sighs. ‘Doesn’t matter, no? Let’s just sit.’
But the maitre d’ justifies his training by gently guiding his brood to a more secluded spot.
‘Great!’ says glass-always-half-empty Senior Three, ‘In this darkness, nobody will see us. Be prepared to go home hungry, everyone.’
On that cheerful note, the group take their seats, with at least two of them changing places at least thrice. They can feel AC blasts on them and would rather not catch pneumonia before dessert.
Senior Two informs the maitre d’ that she ‘…will not look at squiggles and scribbles and will only order from a pucca, printed menu.’
The maitre d’ makes soothing noises.
‘No worries, ma’am, we do use QR codes, but we also have regular menus for our old…’. Catching her expression, he smoothly segues, ‘…most valued customers.’
With a flourish, he executes something akin to a flamenco step, and magically an underling appears, and two Seniors find themselves holding tomes that feel like contenders for a Booker Prize.
Senior Five shakes her head.
‘Aiyo! I can’t go through this entire thing. And print is too small… in this darkness that too. You people decide. Anything is fine.’
Senior Two takes charge.
‘Who is having what to drink?’
There’s a pause.
‘So much writing to describe one drink?’ Senior One shakes his head, flipping pages while massaging his toes.
‘Seriously.’ For once Senior Two agrees, and reads aloud, ‘Sarsaparilla forward with a hint of lime foam, a whisper of cinnamon, teased with cloves’. What on earth…?’
‘That’s just mahali kilangu, no?’ ventures Senior Five, wrinkling her nose. ‘Never liked it even as a pickle.’ She turns to Senior Two, ‘You remember Saroja Paati always sent bottles and bottles…whole house would smell.’
‘Well, I liked it,’ Senior Two chooses to walk alone.
Twenty minutes and twenty questions/doubts/demands later (‘I’m allergic’; ‘Could you use this instead of that…’), all aimed at the maitre ‘d as he rapidly ages, decisions are made and orders placed.
Senior Two, studying the pages meanwhile, says: ‘Where’s the food?’
The maitre d’, clearly wishing he had taken his weekly off today, gently points out that they only serve ‘bar bites’ along with their signature cocktails and mocktails…and that’s pretty much it.
‘No full food? Only starter types?’ Senior Six is aghast.
‘Well, we should have found out more details before booking a table, no? This is what happens when we go by what the kids recommend.’ Senior Two points out, unable to resist scoring a point, since it wasn’t her children who had made this particular suggestion.
Senior Four adds her glass-half-full bit. ‘It’s ok, let’s just eat something, no? The drinks will be here soon.’
‘Okay,’, concedes Senior Two, ‘So – these so-called ‘bites’…there’s mini crispy dosai paired with coconut gochujung…’
‘Why?’ wonders Senior One, ‘when potato masala has worked fine for years?’
‘Yam fritters with curry dip, and fried idli covered with harissa honey glaze.’
‘Oh no, the poor things’, Senior One, having downed his cilantro and mor milagai martini with ill-advised haste, is now ready to weep into his black and silver napkin at these atrocities on classics.
‘Paniyaram with peanut miso sauce…’
‘Vadu manga filling…best.’
‘There’s adai topped with spicy avocado paste’, Senior Two raises her voice and continues to read.
‘Powdered jaggery and dollops of white butter…best’.
‘No thayir saadam?’asks Senior Six.
The maître d’ mops his forehead.
‘Sir, no, sir, we do not serve…’
‘Really? Not even the dressed-up kind?’ Senior Six is shocked. ‘You remember at that other place the kids recommended, they gave us thayir saadam in tiny, shiny glasses placed on one branch of little wrought-iron trees, while on the other branches were little cups filled with thundu manga.’ His eyes glaze over.
The maitre d’, unmoved by the sheer beauty of that image, continues to shake his head.
‘Do you have plain rice?’ Senior Five is being clever.
‘Well, yes…’
‘Do you have yoghurt?’
‘Well, yes…’
‘Voila! Enna problem?’, says Senior Six cheerfully, bringing in a bit of fusion of his own.
‘Do you think they could make some simple crispy potato vathakkal to go with it?’ wonders Senior One, intent on pushing his luck.
The maître d’ pretends he didn’t hear.
The food arrives, tastefully arranged on tiny platters – and everyone wonders why there seems to be such a paucity of serving spoons.
Senior Five whips out her cell phone and starts clicking.
‘What are you doing?’ Senior Two hisses.
‘Kids do this, no?’ Senior Five is all sprightly and girly. ‘I’ll put it all on the family group.’
‘Family group, vamily group… and then sit and delete-gileet’ grumbles Senior Six.
The group having decided to skip the filter-coffee tiramisu and the payasam parfaits, dinner is declared over, and they gather each other and extricate themselves from their low chairs with as much dignity possible.
‘Not bad. Small, small portions, though…and they should offer little thayir saadam, you know,’ is the general verdict.
‘And better lighting,’ adds Senior One, promptly bumping into a gleaming metal artefact that looks like a splash of silver-gold champagne frozen in time.
He clutches the unstable creation; the maitre ‘d clutches the artefact – they all dance together in a slow, stately manner for a few seconds before gently coming to a halt… and the long-suffering maitre ‘d now has a nasty bruise on his side thanks to the artefact…and Senior One’s elbow.
As the group exits, arguing over who should call the chauffeur, no one notices their particular waiter and the maître d’ raising their eyes towards the roof, palms pressed together in a gesture of gratitude, then silently shaking hands in grim silence – like all battle-weary brothers-in-arms, who have managed to somehow survive to fight another day.