Tell Me What You Want To Eat

The beauty of ordering in food always lies in ordering different items for people with different tastebuds. When we have dinner in with the man's parents, we firmly remind them that we have starkly different tastebuds and we do not need to order from the same restaurant. I told them that if they persist in doing this hypocritical and polite "please order what you want to share" thing, I'll make sure that they end up with nothing they want to eat, and everything else would be too spicy. 

FFS, if I'm the one ordering food, you're not helping me with this stupid polite line. It's ambiguous and annoying. I can't guess what you want to eat, and I don't know what you don't eat. For example, when I was ordering items from Din Tai Fung and asked them what they would like, they obstinately carried on with "please order what you want and we'll share". I told the in-laws that if they insisted on not being specific, I'd order 30 dumplings and we'd all eat that for dinner. To me, a basket of buns or dumplings is dinner. Only then, they grudgingly told me they wanted chicken soup and noodles because they don't eat dumplings. THERE WE GO. KNN. WHAT IS SO DIFFICULT ABOUT IT, SERIOUSLY.

I don't understand it. I accommodated it for years — "Please order what you like and we'll share", and every time food turns up, they complain that everything that is supposed to be spicy is too spicy (they can't take any sort of herbs or spices anymore but refuse to admit it or concede), it has coconut milk, it has this which 'I don't eat', it has that which 'I don't like'. OMGWTFBBQ. You know I don't eat take chicken and avoid like plague; I'll never order chicken. Then I get your idiotic line of, 'oh but there's no chicken?' F*ck you, seriously. If you want chicken, say it. How difficult is it to tell me all these BEFORE I order food? I can't read anyone's mind! Is it so problematic to tell me 'No, I don't want to share and I'll order my own mains'? Is that supposed to sound 'selfish'? I have had enough. You are creating problems when you refuse to be specific even when I narrow down a restaurant and ask you about it. WTF. Say what you want, and mean what you say. It helps me to order efficiently, and everybody gets the food that we want. 

This applies to restaurants when we dine out as well. How difficult is it to look at the fucking menu and order. Instead, the parentals don't even want to look at the menu, and go "I'll leave it to you to order and we'll share", and when the food arrives, they repeat all idiotic comments, and we get a ton of leftovers on the table because they don't eat what has been ordered. I finally put a stop to this nonsense in early 2021, and firmly remind them so every few months when they lapse. I tell them straight that if they carry on like that, dining with them at home or at restaurants is extremely unenjoyable. I asked them bluntly if they thought that this line made them feel that they're being nice and 'gracious' or what, because it's not doing anything productive; in fact, it annoys the shit out of the man and I. 

That night, we told the parentals that we ordered Indian vegetarian for ourselves for dinner, and we would order them Thai food. They obediently specified what they wanted from the Thai restaurant, which was very limited because every dish had to have little to no chilli. I got them exactly what they wanted. If they didn't like the dishes, that wasn't my problem. They can complain about the food for all they want because they ordered it. That I can merrily ignore. 

The man and I hadn't eaten at Nalan for ages, and thought we should re-visit it. They still do delivery, and we have two outlets to choose from now- the one in Capitol Piazza, and a new one on Serangoon Road. The food arrived late though, almost 40 minutes late. That was rather annoying. The restaurant pasted a sticker on the boxes to indicate that the food was packed at 5.25pm, and to please consume it within 90 minutes. To have the food arrive 130 minutes later at 7.40pm, that was rather dumb.  

All I wanted was an onion tomato uttapam with chutney and some dhal. It came with three kinds of chutney. Lovely! The little tubs of chutney were done thick in the way I prefer; they were really delicious. Also couldn't resist having the small podi idly that came in 11 cute pieces. I ate a good 6 pieces. Hurhurhur.

Luckily the food didn't go bad during the wait. The man's poori came with sides of channa masala and dhal. Added a mushroom kadai and dhal palak to share. Also ordered a cashew nut pulao since that would go well with the dhal, and leftovers could be kept for the next day. That was such a satisfying dinner.