In the car, Suja and myself were in a
hyper excited state. We were so excited that we could have served some kind
of non-conventional energy source! The thought that this whole thing could
be bogus was also lingering at the back of our minds. This nasty thought made
us so nervous that we were talking nonsense and laughing like idiots. After
exiting from highway 85, R went to the left most lane in order to avoid traffic.
But according to email, the restaurant is located at the right hand side,
I was so piqued, "Why do U have to go to the left most lane, the restaurant
is on the right hand side, we might miss it. " The email said that HSB is
between 237 and Castro street, we were nearing Castro street, but still there
was no sight of HSB, we were just about to conclude that the email was bogus......there
we saw the green letters on the white board...."Hotel Saravana Bhanva, Uyarthara
saiva unavagam". Thats it!!!! It was high five time for Suja and me.
The road was full of desi cars, the parking
lot was full, so R was going round and round looking for a parking. I was
again irritated with him, "Why can't U park quickly? Why don't U let Suja
and me out, we will go and save a seat". Thank God!, R parked soon, otherwise
I would have opened the car door and jumped out of it!
So there we were at the hotel, all seated,
all gleaming with joy, pouring over the menu card. We were set with 2 orders
of mini sambar idli, one mysore bonda, kuzhai puttu, idiyappam, onion dosai
and vegetable parotta. "We don't have kuzhai puttu and idiyappam. The veggie
parotta and mysore bonda are not ready, so U have to wait for a long time."
was the reply we got. So we put our heads together and quiclky came up up,
3 orders of mini sambar idli(we had no intentions of letting the mini idlis
go), rava dosai, onion dosai, 2 orders of parotta. Even before ordering I
declared, "I don't care about who ordered what, all the plates I see on the
table will be considered as my plates, so I will dip generoulsy in to any
plate. People who do not agree to this will be considered a bad sport but
me dipping in to their plates will not change". V wanted to order the same
stuff that I order inorder to prevent me from eating his order.(Wow, so many
orders is a sentence!) Poor V didn't know that I was planning to eat mine
fast and grab whatever was on his plate!!! After ordering R felt that the
14 idlis will be too much and Suja and I reassured R that we will help him
out!!! :)
We were waiting for our orders to come.
When ever the waiter came out of the kitchen with a plate of food, we brightened
instantly and looked at him with expectation, but it he just walked away past
us to someother table. We were trying find out all the stuff that was coming
out of the kitchen and what every one ate. I was telling Suja, "Hey Suja every
one here will definitely get stomach ache, 'cos we are staring at them so
much!..... Oh my God, look what the guy in yellow colored shirt is eating,
what is that, did we miss that? The chutney this aunty is having smells really
good, did we miss this? May be we must have ordered the whole menu", R tried
soothing us by telling that this place will be there for ever and it is entirely
possible to order the rest of the stuff later! Hm....our brains were too clouded
with the 'what the heck did we miss' thought that we were temporarily deaf!
So none of R's reasoning entered our heads.
Finally, after a wait that seemed like
eternity, my rava dosai came, the waiter put it on the table and "vamoose!",
oh-oh it was gone. The idli came next, same thing happened to the idlis too.
Then the rest of the order came. By this time we found that the vegetable
parotta was ready and we ordered that too. It was pretty good. We wanted to
stay and see if we could eat any more, but the time was 8.30 and we had to
leave for the 9.00PM meeting, so we payed the bill and we left the place in
very high spirits.
We were remained of those college times,
when the 4 of us(Radhika, Suja, Thava and myself) used to go Savera. We used
to wake up in a very enthu mood. It felt like that the day itself dawned in
a very special way!....no,no,no the way we felt cannot be described by any
combination of words....it used to feel like, thousands and thousands of flowers
blooming all around us. (I don't think even Wordsworth wud have felt that
way when he saw his Daffodils! ) We used to enter the hotel and place our
orders - for the 4 of us we would order exactly one paneer butter masala,
2 naans - that too its not butter naan, just ordinary naan 'cos ordinary naan
used to be Rs.2.00 lesser than butter naan(we were students with limited money
to spend!), one fried rice, one gobi machurian, occasionally a pepsi/coke/7up
for Thava or a Fanta for me. This was a standard order, we always knew what
we were going to eat! We will split the panner butter masala-i 4 parts, then
tear a piece of naan and clean up the dish in which the gravy was served and
slide it in to our mouth, that is the tastiest gravy I have ever had!! Then
came the routine of filling our bags with the stuff from the table - paper
towel(that was something rare to us) , roasted saunf folded in a papaer napkin
(to eat on the way), tooth picks! Oh!Oh!Oh! I missed this part...before paying
the bill, we would wait for Paneer to come (not the eating paneer,this was
the owner guy, his name is Paneer) and bargain with him to reduce the bill
- this was the tops! "The bill has come up to Rs.140, why don't U make it
Rs.120?"......."How can I?, the prices are fixed, U can see the menu"..."Oh
come on.... don't give us the menu funda, we don't use it even for ordering.
Just think how often we come to Ur restaurant to eat? Just think of the number
of treats we have hosted here. Don't we get a concession?"......"Hmmmm, I
will make it Rs.135"....."Oh...come on, make it Rs.125, okay?".....ha...ha...ha...ha!
What the hell were we thinking?!!!! Wait....actually its kind of cute!....4
girls, going out and eating the food which we dreamed of, longed for...which
was so rarely presented to us......some thing that was not affordable to our
budgets on a daily basis.........simple plain innocence there!! I feel nothing
can beat this innocence! Don't U all think so people???
Well..... we relived a part of that innocence
yesterday. That made the whole eat out thing spl! Nostalgia always makes things
better right?!
Signing Off
Anitha
( PS: Now we have money, we need not
keep looking at the amout before we order stuff, but our excitement level
is the same as it was in college. Moral of the story: Money dosen't matter,
when it comes to food, we will always get terribly excited!! Esp when the
food is tasty and is cooked by some one else!!! :) :) :) )