"All you can EAT"

I have to pose this question: has anyone ever been to an "All you can Eat" Joint?

Well I had the good fortune of going to 2 such places recently, one with MArwadi cuisine, and the other with Rajdhani cuisine.

For those brave souls who intend to ever go to one of these restaurants, kindly take note:

When they say " All you can eat" they actually mean " All you MUST eat". Seriously, I wise someone had provided a lathi along with my thali (lol hope you guys noticed that lathi and thali use the same letters) to beat away all the waiters coming to my table to offer me food i dnt want.

It was the same story at both places- there is no concept of enjoying food slowly, before you can say "table for 4" they have plonked you down on the chair and 3 different types of dhokla (all suspiciously tasting the same) are dumped on your plate. Before you can choke and cry out for some water 3 waiters assault you from all directions lomping (is that a real word) food on every empty space on your plate.

As the entire restaurant is in a drunken dhokla eating frenzy, you find yourself whipping up the enthusiasm to chomp down everything on your plate. everything tastes the same of course :)

Your bad times will start when you have finished 40% of the food on your plate. The Maitre d notices that there is 2 sq cms of free space on your thali (national disaster)
and signals excitedly to the waiters to bring MORE food.

The new waiters don;t know your preferences, so they will try and feed you all the things you don't like (all over again). Since there are 3 waiters carrying rotis in your section of the restaurant, all three will try and put 2 rotis each on your plate ( i think their compensation structure has that as a KRA).No use explaining to them that you are feeling full.

Things really started to go downhill when the captain asked me if I wanted Khichi/ Pulao/ Rice. Now the same thing happened at both restaurants, oddly enough. I refused the Khichi saying I was feeling too full/ don;t like khichdi. The Manager looked like he couldn't believe his ears. I think he took the refusal quite personally and gesticulated wildly to 3 passing waiters to put some khichdi on my plate. Thankfully for me, the 3 waiters were closing in on some other hapless customer (victim) at the other table (phew!).

Thank God for Indian sweets especially Rasmalai, they can make you forget anything, even "All you can Eat"!

**burrp**

:)