One Last Post Before the Apocalypse
I was at the mall earlier this week, which is always such a joy, but I was especially pleased by one of the food court employees. While my friend D was at Johnny Rockets getting me a lemon coke, I was ordering our food at Sarku Japan. Sarku is a teriyaki restaurant, but it’s not that fake sweet teriyaki that you get in most Japanese restaurants so even though it’s fast food, I find it slightly more authentic then a lot of places. Also, all of their employees are Mexican so I assume Sarku is taking its cue from Benihana, which actually does have reasonably good food, even though it’s an annoying place to eat.
Anyway Maria is taking my order, and I say that I’ll have “one chicken and one beef, no mushrooms.” So right off the bat, they’re not going to like me. If you order chicken, you get a ton of chicken. If you order beef, they give you a little beef and a ton of mushrooms, but if you say, “no mushrooms,” then they give you a ton of beef but they also hate you. I assume management imposes some kind of punishment whenever they serve a beef dish that’s not 78% mushrooms. Maria relays to Edgardo, the grill guy, that I want a pollo and a carne sin setas or whatever, and he starts cooking it, and then she tells me how much it is and while I’m paying her, Lorenzo comes out from the back and stands next to Maria.
“WHAT CAN I GET YOU?” asks Lorenzo. Maria seems to think this is normal and ignores him.
“Uh … I’ve been helped?” I say, as Maria hands me my change.
“OH, WHAT ARE YOU HAVING?” Jeez, does this guy even work here? I point three feet to his right where Edgardo is cooking the chicken and beef.
“CHICKEN?”
“Yes. And beef.” I briefly consider telling him I had oatmeal for breakfast, but I decide against it.
“DO YOU WANT DOUBLE MEAT?” I can’t figure out if (a) “double meat” is a Sarku menu option, much like the Double Whopper at Burger King, and Lorenzo still hasn’t figured out that the ordering food portion of my Sarku experience has been concluded, (b) he thinks I’m eating alone and seeing that Edgardo is cooking two orders of meat wants to know if I just really like meat, or (c) something dirty.
I look at Maria and she is staring at me with a completely blank expression. Clearly, when it comes to Lorenzo, her philosophy is “better you than me, sister.” I decide to adopt her strategy of pretending Lorenzo doesn’t exist, when D walks up with our drinks.
“WHAT CAN I GET YOU?” asks Lorenzo.
“I’m with her,” D informs him.
“OHHHH! ARE YOU THE CHICKEN OR THE BEEF?” While D was contemplating exactly what was wrong with Lorenzo, Edgardo was plating up our food.
“Get your food,” I hissed. “Go go go.”
The end. Yes, I know, but I never said it was an interesting story.
At least you had the sense to order just what you wanted. I ate lunch with my co-workers (annual xmas tradition) at Eddie Merlot’s (not an annual tradition). I was doing okay until dessert, which I should have skipped, which I KNOW I should have skipped, which has been punishing me all afternoon AND evening by refusing to move, as have I. Gluttony and sloth – I’m going to hell.
I still ended up feeling crappy later, probably because my normal lunch is an apple and a half-cup of plain yogurt. My system can’t handle a sodium-bomb lunch combined with several hours in an overheated mall; I was so dehydrated the following day, I was like those people in the old V8 commercials who walk at a 45° angle.
Oh I know EXACTLY what you mean by that horrible dehydrated feeling. That’s why I try to avoid eating out. Even eating something ‘rich’ like a steak that I prepare myself doesn’t give me that ‘I MUST DRINK FIVE GALLONS OF WATER RIGHT NOW’ sensation like most restaurant food nowadays. This makes me sound really old, but I swear all restaurants and fast food joints really tasted better and didn’t make me feel so awful years ago.
I always wonder if the serious ‘mall people’ (teenagers and trophy spouses) look at the other shoppers (like me) this time of year and think ‘amateurs’ as we stagger, confused and overwhelmed through the stores. And while creepy employees are always irritating, it is somehow worse when they are in charge of your food. Plus, unlike a clothing store, you’re more likely to ‘be back soon’ and to see them again…
A few years ago I decided to make a few dishes out of an old Better Homes and Garden cookbook that my mom sometimes used when I was a kid, and I was surprised at how bland they were. They were familiar though, so I guess we just ate that way back then and in the years since everything has become fattier and saltier. Since restaurant food has always been even more fatty and salty than home cooking, it’s no wonder that eating out these days can be a cardiac event.
I don’t know about other shoppers pegging me as an occasional mall-goer, but those oddballs who work the kiosks in the center of the mall seem to know and make a beeline toward me as someone who they can trick into buying a European Hand Treatment or a line-drawn portrait of Michael Jordan.
I’m so glad you’re not apocalypsed or anything, although maybe Lorenzo was one of the angels assigned to destroy the world and they’re all just totally bad at it. Apocalypse by MSG just doesn’t seem that intimidating.
Apocalypse by MSG is also not all that effective. Really all that happens is that everyone in the world gets a headache. I will say though that last night I watched about five minutes of The X-Factor, saw Pitbull, Mario Lopez, and some girl wearing a rubber dress and thought, “the end is here. It is as foretold.”
That is almost as interesting as my story about the grocery store cashier who was so fiercely in control of her little space that I felt like a misbehaving kindergartener for trying to move my shopping cart to get to the credit card swiping machine. “JUST LEAVE IT RIGHT THERE!”
One time a grocery store cashier yelled at me for taking a 12-pack of pop out of my cart and putting it on the belt. She was all huffy because apparently, they use the scanner gun for that. I don’t know why she was so mad, unless using the scanner gun is the highlight of her sad day.
One of my least favorite things is when I go to a restaurant a lot and suddenly people there feel like I’m their friend, and then I can never go there again.
I’ve gotten used to the over-familiarity of most servers, but I was at a Bubba Gump’s once (it was a mistake, I know that now) where the waitstaff were involved in some kind of scavenger hunt so they kept asking us for things like a 50 cent piece or if they could have the bones from our buffalo wings. It was irritating. Fortunately, the food there is so awful, I’m not missing out on anything by refusing to return.
Sound strategy you had, bravo! And bravo to D for knowing how to take a cue, ’cause I’m assuming D went.
Of the two of us, she tends to be the unflappable one, but even she was unnerved by Lorenzo’s intense level of interest. We kind of race-walked away from the counter.
I don’t have a restaurant story worth telling. Happy New Year!
It looks like I don’t either, not that it stopped me.