Tales from foreign restaurants

It is a known fact that food -  chicken and chips, rice and stew garnished with fried plantain, indomie, abacha, pepper soup, suya, pasta, egusi soup to be precise - is my major weakness. Gosh! A bad day at work can be washed away by a plate of food. Not even a loved one's touch makes me feel that good. I just love food. Maybe sometime soon I'll tell tales of my weight loss programs that I've lost faith in cos of my profound love for food! Good food o!

So it's that time of the year when work takes me outside the country for a training! Training huh! I call it holiday. This year's was in New York, the city that never sleeps!! I got ready excitedly like a virgin bride, waltzed to the airport only to find almost all my bosses checking in for the same flight, same training! Geez! I should have packed more of the right kind of suits (I had more swimming in mind), then the bum shorts and sexy dresses...! Well, will make up a story about my dressing mishap when I get to NYC. While I craved parties after each training, my ogas thought about food. Each time I got back, I heard them talking about the food they ate. On the last night of our stay in NYC, I decided to go out with them to eat.

Truth be told, in all my stay, I never tried anything other than meat, plain cooked meat, not mixed or dipped in any weird looking sauce. Say I like food no reach say I go chop anything wey one chef sidon shit. We got to the restaurant with a weird name that already told me how the cuisine would be. See eh, in all my life, I've always acknowledged I'm a village woman. That way people don't expect more than that from me. We took a long table and I stylishly sat at the far end of it. Being the last order has never failed me. I pretended that I was going through the menu while I listened to every other person's order. When I finally really looked at the menu, it was laughable! Everything was written in a language that wasn't English, Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba. It looked more like Spanish with a whole lot of words ending in 'to'! Lol! So how did they order? I beckoned on the waiter and asked that he got me plain old chicken and chips. Not dipped in anything, just plain!

He did. How glad I was. As I was about to dig in, my colleagues' dishes arrived. Hmmmm! See packaging. The kind of pots they came in made me feel that maybe I made the wrong choice. One in  particular got me so jealous. It was in one of those plates that mum used to serve food only when her in-laws were around. It came with a line up of other tiny plates carried by smiling chefs. This must be some popular dish! The proud owner, Doyin was all smiles. I ordered right, he must have thought.

Ingalls Photography

The story changed when the pot abi na plate was opened. Fire came out like a bomb and Doyin screamed 'Mo'gbe o' (I am finished)! As a runner, I was halfway off my seat when the multitude of chefs that came with the food started applauding and whistling. OK! If only they saw the look of horror on his face which heightened when he summoned courage to look into the plate only to find ONIONS! GRILLED ONIONS! Hahahaha! It was as if the chef took a trip to Mile 12 market where onions is really cheap. Doyin looked around maybe hoping to find roasted plantain, yam, rice or even eba to go with the onions. Lol! All he saw was weird looking raw vegetables with their washed roots. Lol! I buried my face in my chips and pretended that I didn't know about his hunger and bad investment of 25 dollars.


We got back to Nigeria and I got back to my normal feeding. Life
 was perfect until my colleague resigned. She had to be sent forth and in my office, if you don't do Chinese or any other over spiced food, you are not seen as grown.  Hmmmmm! We all paid 10 grand each and headed to Southern Point, one of the biggest hotels around. Truth be told, the hotel is big and quite beautiful. We got directed to their buffet point and as always, I looked at all the displayed dishes and knew I had wasted my money. Nothing was normal by my standards. Everything had to be mixed with something slimy. I walked up to the apple stand and loaded my plate with apples but how many apples would I eat to make up for my 10grand. As part of the rule, one cannot take anything away if not....na to go buy bag come package one carton of apple go my house.

I was just about to walk back to my table when I saw a man whose plate was loaded with amala and plantain! Hian! I stopped and stared which he must have seen cos he walked up to me beaming with smiles.
"Hi"
"Hello"
"My name is Tony Balankang. I am from Gambia. I just love Nigerian dishes"
"Really"

I still couldn't get over the amala and plantain in his plate.
"Someone told me this tastes good", he continued
"Yeah! It really does," I said. "It would taste best with milk, stew and a big chunk of cake! Yummy! Try it"
He sheepishly went on to heap all those on his plate. The sight of it made my whole day! I went back to my table and munched on 20 apples with a straight face!

As if that wasn't enough to last me a while, my oyibo boyfriend decided to take me out. I knew it would be crazy but I had said no to him far too long. He hates everything I love doing like dancing, watching movies, sleeping....and I hate everything he loves too like reading, reading, reading....and in his sense of common ground, he came up with going to a Chinese restaurant. I looked at him like strangle me already.

"Can't you just take me shopping?" I asked in the sexiest of voices. He laughed long and hard, looked at me straight in the face unsmiling and said NO! Well, there's no harm in trying! Chinese then!

Hmmmm! We got there o! He pulled out my seat (which truthfully was weird to me)! He then ordered for me which really was annoying but then with Chinese, I never know what to expect. My food got to me. Dears, it was all vegetable, raw freaking veggies! Hian! His wasn't ready yet and God knows I would not wait for any man to be ready to eat before I can eat! Besides, I've never seen chewing anything raw as an easy task so I better put in an early start.

I chewed bravely!

I ate gallantly!

No way was I letting this man see that I was being punished.

I ate like my ancestors demanded it for the safety of my generation. Maybe later I'll regurgitate like a goat! Rubbish!

Then I stopped! Henry just sat and watched, much unlike him! He placed his elbow on the table and his palm under his chin and watched me like a big fat little wonder! 

"What dear?", I asked

"Oh! Nothing!" he replied 

I continued munching. Then his meal and my dessert (I guess) arrived. Hmmm! I opened and saw something that looks like baby food and shit combined together and surrounding something like a heap of mashed potatoes. It was like an island. 

"I thought dessert should be lighter than the main meal?" I asked, feeling wise.

"Yes" he replied.

Then why is this different?

"This is part of the main meal! You are meant to roll this up in the veggies you have eaten, then eat it. Its usually tasty and....."

He went on and on and all I wanted to do was go home and apply for 'shame leave' in the morning!

Pictures by @bigfootinyourface