Jay Rege’s Blog

Out on a date at a fine restaurant, with a fine lady, we ordered momos for starters. Now if you are wondering what a momo is, well it’s a Tibetan/Nepali delicacy made out of minced meat (pork or chicken), wrapped individually as a dumpling and steamed, served with a special sauce/chutney and soup. (If you are still interested in finding out more about the momo, you can Google it out). And just in case you are wondering whom was I out on a date with and when and where and etc etc.. then ..Nah, I am NOT telling you anything more on that, so just get over it and continue reading.

So after a while the waiter arrives with a plate of hot, steaming, yummy looking momos and what do I notice ‘Oh Oh.. there are 7 momos on the plate’. Now how much I hate being in such an ‘odd’ situation. I mean, how could those restaurant guys do this to us? 2 people and 7 momos?? Do they not understand that 7 is a number that is not divisible by 2? Could they just not make it 8 momos? Or maybe even 6 (but nah.. considering what they were charging for a plate of momos, I think I would rather go with 8 than 6). Anyways without the slightest display of anxiety or panic, we continued our conversation, savoring our way though the momos - one momo at a time. But as anticipated, I soon faced the situation I had dreaded. We were down to that Last Momo on the plate.

It’s a tough situation I tell you. On one hand you really want that momo, but then you don’t want to make it look obvious either. You have an image to protect (I think). In such a situation, carrying on with the conversation and acting as if you are paying attention to what the lady is saying and enjoying it too, is a real challenge. Because the only thought that’s hammering you in the head is ‘Who’s gonna eat that last momo?’. But I think I was still doing a fine job at acting normal and enjoying the conversation, and I doubt if my date had realized that I had lost her to that last momo a while ago. And that’s when she uttered those golden words. She said “Go ahead, finish that momo”.

It was a moment of ecstasy. It was bliss. Without the slightest hesitation whatsoever, I dug the fork (which I was all the while still holding in my hand) into the momo, dipped the momo in the sauce and gulped it down. I thought I had done this as gracefully as I could, without revealing the euphoria I was experiencing as the momo found its way into my stomach, caressing my soul on its way down; but a look at her face, didn’t take me long to realize that I was totally wrong. I don’t know what exactly gave me away. Maybe it was the haste with which I gulped down the momo, or maybe it was the look and love in my eyes (for the momo of course), or maybe it was the broad grin on my face; but whatever it was, it was enough for me to understand that along with the momo I had gulped down on the little ounces of chivalry that I thought I was carrying along all this while. Well no issues. Chivalry and I were never on good terms anyways. So no regrets on losing it :-)

But I am not the type who would give up that easily. I tried to justify my actions by arguing that it was she who had offered me that last momo. I even asked her “Had I offered you that momo, would you have eaten it?“, to which she replied “Of course I wouldn’t”. “So fine, then what’s the complaint about?” was my reaction. But apparently things were not as fine and simple as they should have been. I wanted that momo and she didn’t want it; she wanted me to display a little more chivalry and I guess I didn’t have it.

Needless to say, that when the bill arrived, and she offered to pay, I obliged to her request and let her do the honor. Anyways I had lost grace. Let me not lose my money too - is what I thought :-). Yup, I know I can be smart at times :-)

PS: Just for the record, I am planning to file a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) against all restaurants serving odd number of starters to a party of two. Anybody willing to join me in this noble cause?

Here’s a question to all my MBA friends “How do you sell a small piece of Papaya for Rs. 200?” (For those who are blissfully unaware of how much a papaya costs – you could buy a fairly decent sized papaya for Rs. 20). Well if you are still working out your marketing strategy to sell the piece of the Papaya for Rs. 200, then here’s the answer: Crush the piece of papaya and put it in a small plastic bottle, fill the bottle with some liquid soap and then write on the bottle ‘Facewash with Papaya Extracts’ - :) Yup, now this damn thing could easily fetch you 200 bucks or more. With minor alterations in packaging, shape of the bottle, pictures on the bottle etc, you could pass on this soapy solution as a shampoo, bodywash, handwash, or even as shaving gel. But make sure you have the words ‘With Papaya Extracts’ and a picture of the papaya on the bottle.

Strange, but somehow the humble ‘Papaya’ has made it big in the cosmetic business. Although the papaya has been into existence for many years now, until recently I never realized its true potential. I never considered it anything more than a fruit that I didn’t enjoy eating much. The papaya for me was a poor man’s fruit - nature’s gift to those who couldn’t afford the mango. Papaya juice with a lot of saccharine was traditionally used as filler to dilute mango juice (like pumpkin was used in tomato ketchup). I never knew that the papaya had any other potential, until it somehow found a break in the cosmetic industry. I should say I am really happy for the Papaya.

But the Papaya isn’t alone. If you happen to be an ardent viewer of advertisements on TV (like I am), or walk down the soap/shampoo aisle at a retail store, you will be amazed to see the amount of ‘food’ that goes into these beauty products. It’s strange, but the ad for the beauty soap with strawberry and cream looks yummier than a Baskin Robbins. These days there’s plenty of edible stuff in your beauty products right from the papaya, strawberry, peach, orange, banana, wheat, milk cream, chocolate, avocado, tea tree, green apple, almond, apricot, cucumber, watermelon, jojoba (I have no idea what the jojoba is, but whatever it is, it sound pretty exotic), to my all time favorite the ‘Aloe Vera’. And if for some reason your shampoo manufacturers decide not to add food to your shampoo, they would at least make sure it comes ‘with added vitamins A, B, D & E’, so that you don’t miss out on your daily dose of vitamins.

Well I have a lot more to write on these cosmetic foods, but the talk of food invariably makes me hungry. So I will be back after a quick ‘food’ break (and no. I don’t mean a shower and shave here. I mean a real food break). Ciao.

We were at a restaurant over the weekend with a group of friends and as we were trying to decipher the menu, with the waiter waiting anxiously (rather impatiently) for us to place the order, my friend blurted out the most dreadful question one can at a restaurant “So, what would you recommend?”. I was shocked, rather scared. Scared because, the question was not addressed to me or either of us at the table, but was addressed to the waiter. My mind was like ‘Oh no, no no no no no… what have you done!! How could you do this to us?’

I hate impatient waiters. What I don’t understand is that how can someone who’s called a ‘waiter’ not like to wait. Well anyways, that’s a completely separate issue altogether, let me come back to the mess my dear friend had got us into. To begin with how can you ask a complete stranger, who had no idea about your taste in food, to recommend you something? It’s as bad as asking a chemist a second opinion on your doctor’s prescriptions (I have seen many people doing that too). Well so now the waiter starts recommending you certain dishes and your mind start wondering if he is trying to sell you leftovers from previous day. You start thinking if he recommending them only because the chef really wants to get rid of those dishes? So when the guy says “Why don’t you try the Chicken Mughlai” I hear him saying “Why don’t you help us finish the Chicken Mughlai. It’s been lying in the kitchen for a week now. Nobody’s eating that. Please eat it for us”

So now the waiter has put forth his recommendations, putting you in a real dilemma. I mean how safe is it to reject a waiter’s recommendation? Once the waiter has recommend the Chicken Mughlai, is it OK to say “nah, we don’t want Chicken Moughlai, get us Mutton Roganjosh instead”? Would he take that as an offence and if he does would he actually take revenge? As revenge would he just overcharge you, or would go to the extent of tampering with your food too? You never know what actually happens back in restaurant kitchens. It’s always behind closed doors. But I have seen dreadful things happen back there in movies where they show all sorts of food adulteration tricks, not to mention the ever classic ‘spit in food’ kind of revenge.

Thankfully this time we were a fairly large group, and we ordered a few dishes as per the waiter’s recommendation, and a few others that were our as per our choice - thus arriving at what I believe was a win-win situation. The food was good. I enjoyed the dinner. Nevertheless all through dinner I was still trying to taste ‘staleness’ in the waiter recommended dishes and ‘tampering’ in the dishes we chose -:)