Indian Restaurant Theory
So last night, as Gina was in town for a couple days between her frequent trips to NYC (she's back there today again - and should be moving for good next weekend), we decided to hang out sort of as a "Everything's cool now, so let's hang out one last time as friends" type of thing.
Both of us being famished, in the mood for ethnic food, and seeing how she had a $10 coupon at Hi Bombay!, that's where we went. As for the vibe - everything was in fact totally cool between us, now that we're on the same page, we can both relax a bit and since we cleared everything up, there was no tension at all. It was surprisingly chill. It was honestly the best example of 'closure' that I've ever experienced. So that's really cool, I'm so glad things are going to end positively.
That's not the point of this entry though. Since we'd never had Indian together before, she never had a chance to hear my theory about Indian restaurants. I also just now realized, I don't think I've ever published it on LJ, and since I'm bored right now, well here it is.
My theory is that 90% of all Indian Restaurants (some more specialized higher-end ones excluded) are in fact franchises of a sort. Somewhere out there is the "Indian Restaurant Company" that you contact when you want to open one up. Then they send you your starter kit.
What's in the kit?
- A few CDs of...Indian music, that you only play when customers are in the restaurant.
- A selection of kitschy Indian wall décor. Typically, black-background oil paintings with smatterings of metal gilting, featuring themes of people riding elephants and things.
- Some ceiling tapestries cut to fit exactly over 1 tile of a false ceiling. Every few panels will be covered with one of these.
- A menu complete with cookie-cutter descriptions.
On the last thing, a case in point. I hadn't even opened the menu yet when I was telling Gina all of this, and when I came to the part about the identical menus, I asked her to quiz me. "Look up, I dunno...Keema Mutter"
So, she opens her menu and finds it.
"OK. Here's what it probably says. 'An ancient recipe of ground lamb, peas, coriander, and ginger.'"
Her response: "What do you do, go around memorizing these things?" I had it exactly right, word for word.
No, I told her, I just started to notice that basically every Indian restaurant I've ever been to has the EXACT same, word-for-word descriptions.
Now honestly, I'm only joking. Perhaps one family owns all of the Indian restaurants in Maine, hence the startling similaraties. But then again, maybe I'm on to something here?
Both of us being famished, in the mood for ethnic food, and seeing how she had a $10 coupon at Hi Bombay!, that's where we went. As for the vibe - everything was in fact totally cool between us, now that we're on the same page, we can both relax a bit and since we cleared everything up, there was no tension at all. It was surprisingly chill. It was honestly the best example of 'closure' that I've ever experienced. So that's really cool, I'm so glad things are going to end positively.
That's not the point of this entry though. Since we'd never had Indian together before, she never had a chance to hear my theory about Indian restaurants. I also just now realized, I don't think I've ever published it on LJ, and since I'm bored right now, well here it is.
My theory is that 90% of all Indian Restaurants (some more specialized higher-end ones excluded) are in fact franchises of a sort. Somewhere out there is the "Indian Restaurant Company" that you contact when you want to open one up. Then they send you your starter kit.
What's in the kit?
- A few CDs of...Indian music, that you only play when customers are in the restaurant.
- A selection of kitschy Indian wall décor. Typically, black-background oil paintings with smatterings of metal gilting, featuring themes of people riding elephants and things.
- Some ceiling tapestries cut to fit exactly over 1 tile of a false ceiling. Every few panels will be covered with one of these.
- A menu complete with cookie-cutter descriptions.
On the last thing, a case in point. I hadn't even opened the menu yet when I was telling Gina all of this, and when I came to the part about the identical menus, I asked her to quiz me. "Look up, I dunno...Keema Mutter"
So, she opens her menu and finds it.
"OK. Here's what it probably says. 'An ancient recipe of ground lamb, peas, coriander, and ginger.'"
Her response: "What do you do, go around memorizing these things?" I had it exactly right, word for word.
No, I told her, I just started to notice that basically every Indian restaurant I've ever been to has the EXACT same, word-for-word descriptions.
Now honestly, I'm only joking. Perhaps one family owns all of the Indian restaurants in Maine, hence the startling similaraties. But then again, maybe I'm on to something here?