We dine out a lot. Some restaurants are very quick in serving the food and some are not. In a busy restaurant you might need to wait some time for a free table then some time for a waiter to attend you and some more time for the food to be prepared. So what do you do while waiting for the food to be served especially when you are starving? I came up with a nice game that my husband and I usually play at restaurants to make the wait time interesting.
I am an Indian living in Silicon Valley. Needless to say we dine most of the time in Indian restaurants. And the people who come to dine mostly fall into the following categories: couples, who are newly married, married for few years, with kids, visiting parents, and singles that come for some onsite assignments. The age group of Indians dining out more or less ranges from 22-40. So it is fun watching them eat. Each category has its own trait.
A little about the game I invented, one of us have to pick a table and guess the category the people of that table belong to. We do not have judges in this game. Usually I observe some one and ask my husband his opinion. We defend each of our answers and discuss the possibilities. It is lot of fun doing that. It works out very well for us because the categories are limited and you see a definite pattern among each category.
My process of categorizing people goes like this. Let me start with newly weds, the most interesting category of all. They can be sub divided into couples who had love marriage or arranged marriage. We often see the later versions. With the arranged marriage couples, most of the time it is the guy who has been living here and for the wife it is the first time in US. So the guy has a predominant role here. He tries to explain her with great enthusiasm that you get all these cool authentic Indian cuisine to start with. Then he helps her in choosing some thing to eat. They keep looking at each other, the girl blushing, the guy admiring his wife when she is struggling to decide some thing on the menu. It is like watching a romantic movie. And they both sacrifice so much when it comes to ordering food trying to order the other person’s choice even if they don’t like it. So sweet!
Some times you miss the opening credits but do not worry as every thing going on between them tells you they are newly wed as if love is in the air. They never get frustrated of waiting for the food to be served and chat very lovingly about every possible topic on earth. You can tell some thing by looking at the way they sit. The guy is more relaxed and the girl is a little conservative trying to be conscious of her surroundings. Of course some times if the guy is too conservative the scene can be other way too! Once the food arrives, they do not dig in like others. They take time to talk about each of their choice, first taste the food on other’s plate and then slowly eat sharing every small bite. They don’t have time to look at other tables like we do!
The next category is couples who had known each other for a few years and got married. They already know each other, their likes and dislike what to order and all that. So they do not waste much time in ordering food. Once the order is placed they start chatting on some topic enjoying the conversation, playfully touching each other, laughing etc. They both look very relaxed and comfortable and have fun while waiting. In this category usually the girl’s role is predominant as the guy is still trying to please her and do whatever she likes! Once the food comes they share but sparingly and then go and finish their food. They do look at other tables and wave happily at the kids sitting around them. They are happy people.
Moving to the couples married for few years with kids, if the kid is an infant it is still OK. They try to give the baby milk or some Gerber food before their order arrives so that they can eat in peace. They give a rattler to the baby and eat happily discussing only about the baby or about their friends with babies. They do not have time to look around to see who else are in the restaurant, if they do they envy the couples who do not have kids and feel sad for the couples with older kids. We can actually guess what they are talking by just looking at them. Most of them have their parents visiting them to help them with the baby. So they try to help their parents with the menu and how to eat with a fork and a knife etc. I enjoy watching other’s parents especially when the guy marries a Chinese girl or an American.
Now with parents with kids, toddlers to say six years old, the first thing they do once they get a table is to impatiently wait for the waiter to come and take the order. They decide what to eat on their way to the restaurant. They hate waiting and expect the food to arrive in record time. They start complaining about the waiter. They struggle to stop the kid from pulling others hair, hitting other babies, running away from the table, and pouring water all over themselves. The kids become very imaginative at restaurants and come up with highly unpredictable pranks. Father expects the mother to take care of the kid and vice versa and they both decide never to come to a restaurant again and order the food to go. Once the food arrives, both of them try to make sure that the kid likes it and eats it. Meanwhile they forget to even look at what is on the other’s plate and just gulp in and swallow their food. The kid ends up playing with the food and not eating anything leaving the parents more frustrated and the waiter poor guy never gets good tip as the parents think that it is his entire fault for not getting the food in time!
I am a mother of 3 year old. We went through all the phases mentioned above and came up with great tricks to make our life peaceful and enjoy our trip to a restaurant. We take one of my son’s favorite toys so that he can be busy playing with it till the food comes. We try to ask for a table which is away from the trouble making zone. We let him play with the sugar packets and make some nice sugary water so that he does not pour the water on the table or some where else. We play our game of guessing the age of the marriage of the couples sitting around our table and have some fun till the food arrives. We also try to look at what others have ordered and if it looks good so that we can try it out by ourselves. Once the food arrives, we share our food, have fun, and make sure he eats some thing to fill himself. I prefer going to restaurants where I can play this game!
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