Have you ever wondered what it feels like to eat your own words? I had that sort of experience this week.
I was happily skipping through Majeedhee Magu on my way to Dosa99.mv to try their Dosa Tikka after reading on Instagram husenfulhu.eats and shaari_'s pleasant adventures there.
Guess what then happened? Just when I crossed into Maafannu ward, I caught husenfulhu.eats calmly waiting with his earbuds on.
“I’m on my way to Dosa99.mv. Can I treat you to whatever you want? You can eat what you haven’t had that day with shaari_”, I said to him.
Of course, he didn’t hear what I said and I repeated myself after he took off the earbuds.
“Do you believe in serendipity? How odd is it that by coincidence we should meet right here right at this time?” I said to him. But of course, there can be no answer to such cosmic questions.
Despite the few tables there, fortunately, we managed to get one.
There was only a waiter-cum-cashier and I ordered a Dosa Tikka while husenfulhu.eats decided to try chicken biryani.
The waiter appeared hard of hearing because we had to repeat our orders. I wondered whether I should make him repeat our order back to us but husenfulhu.eats thought that that wasn’t a good idea.
Then problems started when the waiter brought a water bottle but some minutes passed without him bringing us glasses.
Husenfulhu.eats pointed that out and I guessed it might have been something to do with water being husenfulhu.eat’s favorite drink.
Husenfulhu.eats checked what was the Hindi word for glasses but he went on to use the English word which the waiter understood and told us to wait for a few minutes.
We wondered whether he had forgotten about the glasses or why it was taking long to bring them. Were they been washed inside the kitchen?
“Maybe he is the only server here right at this moment,” husenfulhu.eats opined.
“We’re been treated like second class citizens in our own country. No wonder we need to keep ‘India Out’!”, he then joked.
By then I was seriously harboring misgivings about the positive report husenfulhu.eats had written on his Instagram and told him I am going to write a negative report on my Instagram.
“I know that I should empathize. I know that the waiter might be having a bad day. He has a faraway look in his eyes,” I told husenfulhu.eats.
He didn’t say much and it didn’t take long before the waiter brought our orders including Masala Chai for both of us.
And Good Lord (as husenfulhu.eats often says), the Dosa Tikka and the Masala Tea were heavenly. I even tasted husenfulhu.eats’s chicken biryani and found it awesome, too.
I cringed for earlier harboring a bad attitude towards the waiter and the restaurant.
It was then that I realized what it means to eat one’s words.
I took back all my words but not in front of the waiter. He was doing his waiting and cashiering in blissful ignorance.
Incidentally, husenfulhu.eats had to leave before me.
The waiter brought my check and there was no doubt that the dishes offered value for money.
I am told that in these times eateries in Maldives include service charge but after an expat at a Maldivian eatery told me otherwise, I usually check whether service charge is included.
At Dosa99.mv, it’s not. So I slipped a 20 Maldivian note to the waiter before I exited after offering my table of four to three white Caucasians who entered just as I finished my heavenly meal.
I then thought of what husenfulhu.eats said to me before he had exited - and when I had admitted to him I will eat my own words because the dishes were delish.
“Now you know why we need ‘India In’,” he had said. Haha!
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