Makan Kaki

Dear diary … this is not so much a log of some of my daily dining indiscretions and gratuitous opinions, but more of a rant.

For all you addicts of tabloid headliners though, nope, this will not be followed by an online apology for an accidentally published profanity-laced diatribe against a social injustice of the most basic kind.

I just wanted to say, ‘damn’, but what is it about restaurants that don’t serve water, for free, that is? What’s worse is the fact that credulous diners are then expected to “choose” instead to purchase some – from a selection of sparkling and still varieties, no doubt, which the restaurants have so kindly stocked.

I’ve got to hand it to them. If I could get a just a few thirsty blokes from each table to order a round of branded H2O – likely bottled and flown in direct from the French or Italian alps – when a decent glass is just a turn-of-the-tap away, I’d be laughing my way to the bank too.

I know that some upmarket dining establishments in Europe and America typically prefer you ordered a bottle. Serving you tap water would be the less-then-sophisticated option. And to a certain extent, I can see the raison d’être (or rationale), like it or not.

That said, you could still insist on a glass of sky-juice on the house, however unglamorous it might turn out to be.

I do, however, find it too hard to justify the fact that a few casual restaurants and eateries I’ve visited here actually have in place a policy of not serving tap water. Not even their discerning staff could come up with a good reason when queried.

How expensive can it be? Isn’t it also a socially established “privilege”, given that the $12.50++ for a plate of pasta that the diner is paying for isn’t the cost price of the dish?

Granted, one could take a short stroll to the restroom for a quick gulp. Or do the Singaporean thing and come prepared with your own water bottle.
Given the choice – and the means – I would love to wet my oesophagus with a little designer aqua. Better yet, make that a glass of sparkling spring water, flavoured with a slice of lemon. But that is my point: I wasn’t given one.

Tags: dining out, eateries, food for thought, food journal, restaurants

Sitting in quiet contemplation, I’m often able to drift quickly back to the time I tried – sampled, if you like – an ingredient or dish for the very first time. Not that it’s a common practice while I’m hard at work trying to delineate the appeal of a new restaurant, menu, or a dubious new trend, for that matter.

It is funny, though, just how well we remember the foods we eat. Now and again, I’d recall a particularly much-loved dish I had a good decade ago. Its seductive aroma, which seems strangely crisp when I’d close my eyes, almost fools me into believing I’m at a table on a quiet beach in the company of an adoring Mediterranean sunset.

If I were a woman, I might lick my lips and indulge in a little smile. Or bite my bottom lip, treat myself to a coy smirk and pray that the office hunk sitting across from me isn’t taking notice.

As a man finding it impossible to stay monogamous where food is concerned, I’d probably be diving into my little black book of past gustatory sensations, foolishly optimistic about the possibility of a steamy reunion. 

Like the memory of a first kiss, it would have to be a really good dish, or conversely, a particularly traumatic encounter with a deceptively dishy piece of work. Thankfully, mine, in this instance, is selective memory at its best.

The dish in question, if you’re wondering, is authentic Andalusian seafood paella – a rice dish made with fresh aphrodisiacal plump prawns, mussels and clams, slow-cooked over an open wood-fire somewhere along the region’s celebrated coast.

I’ve also quickly grown to appreciate the fact that good food is one of the few unaffected pleasures involving all of our five senses. Well, six if you count my fellow foodie’s rare ability to spot a good sommelier by the shoes he wears, or even the tone of his voice as he leans over to softly recommend a worthy alternative to the corked bottle of wine she had initially selected.

Dependent as they are on each other, a good dish will have all our senses fighting for the best seat in the house, rendering us helpless in determining if it smells as good as it tastes or vice versa.

The constituent to bring balance to this force of nature, if I may suggest without sounding like Yoda on a cooking show, is our adopted capacity to appreciate a good dish for its veritable and varying virtues.

Let’s face it. Ever since we stopped throwing rocks at the things we want to have for dinner (I’m guessing around 10,000BC), food for us quickly went from a necessity to – in extreme cases – a necessary evil.

For my part, I’m just hoping that more of us find it within ourselves the need to treasure this obvious luxury. To not only help preserve the collective traditions of culinary alchemy, but also keep the very same ingredients under consideration from becoming just another sweet memory.

On a less sombre note, should you have an orgasmic experience dining out, do share – just take a cue from Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally (1989). If I were one of the diners present during Meg Ryan’s famed restaurant “outburst”, I too would want what she was having.

Tags: cooking, dining out, Food, food journal, wine