Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Motor Pun'ire!

Indian restaurants in the US are strange in more ways than one. Though most of them do a good job in serving the food right, some simply don't. They rather specialize in screwing up things like professionals.

Outside India, most Indians know enough not to compare home food (or even food from restaurants in India) to food in US desi restaurants. Restaurants capitalize on this very idea. They effortlessly let the quality of food slide, but try in despair to infiltrate into other areas.

Maybe the hospitality matters.

Most restaurants make sure the guests half-way through their meal need to be asked 'how is everything'. I wonder what might happen if one says 'the food sucks!! '. Most waiters are uber-confident about the reply that they don't even wait to hear from the guest.

There have been times when I have asked for water and got looks as if I was asking for a good share in the thousand shares of Google the waiter owns.

To get a better feel of the (in)hospitality, one should enter a restaurant at 9.45pm, when the closing time is 10pm. The waiter might expect the guest to decide till the dessert, before even one is shown a menu card.

It eventually becomes a discovery that quality of food and hospitality are perhaps not the only reasons one goes to restaurants. Like most others, I have this habit of not eating the same variety of food in the same restaurant for the second time.

The other day, as I was browsing through the menu at this Indian restaurant, I found something called “Motor Pun'ire”. I almost thought it was a new dish, before I realized the intended name is actually “Mutter Paneer”. Whowould imagine mis-spelling to this extent?! Looking through the other items such as “Alu Motor”, “Chicken Mosolla” the laughter was more satiating than the food in the first place.

One infers the name of the food hardly matters either.

Despite all these, I for one consider going to an Indian restaurant a regular activity - as I believe "eating Indian food is the best thing to happen, especially when one does not have to cook them". I happily let go on a few other things.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I could catch this admist... " if u own a 1000 shares on google "... well.. the next thing would be to take a job of a waiter... nothing else looks viable !!!

maxdavinci said...

9:45 is the time for leftovers...
Guess you have strong intestines!

Which shady restaurant has such a mis-spellt menu?

Anonymous said...

I don't see why you should complain, considering YOU are the one entering a restaurant 15 minutes before closing. Would you enter a non-Indian restaurant at such a time? Then why do you expect to be treated differently just because they serve Indian food?

Arun Sundar said...

Narayan,
Agree with you totally!

Max,
Some dabba restaurant in NY.

Anon,
I have entered non-Indian restaurants after mid night.Or to make it clear, even 5 mins before they close. And who are you by the way? Gandhiji?

Nandini Vishwanath said...

Why are you so obsessed with GOogle shares? :D

Ya, I have noticed too the hilariousness of Desi restaurants in the US!

buddy said...

desi food in reataurants sucks big time! especially in new england

RukmaniRam said...

u sure the place wasn't run by bengalis?

-=A.R.N.=- said...

On top of it; most 'desi' places don't even taste right.

I prefer to eat out more at arab places; at least they make the food right.

Raz said...

unga kita nan innum niraiya yethir pakkuren....

Arun Sundar said...

Nandini,
Using your influence, get me some shares of google no? ;) And yaa, the hilariousness!!

Buddy,
Good to know. Will remember to visit one there and write a post on it!

Rukmani,
Perhaps...but I dont remember..

Rahman,
'most' is the word to watch here!

Raz,
Innumaa ma'm?

Rayees Ahamed said...

hehe, "Motor" is too much ..

yesterday we went to an indian restaurant here in my city, saw the menu, shortlisted the veggies when the menu had too much nonveggies including schinken chilly (i dont know if there is really any indian dish of that kind, in tamil it may be "Panni Mulagaai" and in Hindi "Suvvar Mirchi"). k in the veggie list there was aalu pakora (bajji), we ordered, Wonderfully it tasted like a diet meal for High BP patients...

Anonymous said...

Agree with the last line, 100%! But personally feel rests are much better on the westcoast.

Mohammed Musthafa said...

lol...loved the motor pun'ire! cud've never guessed wht it was supposed to actually mean!

I said...

That horrible thing called mango lassi...