Parlez Vous Anglais ?
So I was reading Swathi's blog and she was mentioning how McDonalds looks so out of place in Europe. I totally agree with her. McDonalds sticks out like a sore thumb amongst all those quaint old buildings and streets. I totally hated it when I was there a couple of years back. At least I used to hate it. Until this one day...
I walked into this French restaurant on the outskirts of Paris (I think it was somewhere near La Defense). I was starving. I looked at the menu and (of course) everything was written in French. The cute waitress unfortunately shook her head at my "Parlez vous Anglais?" ("Do you speak English?") question. So I resigned myself to picking out a random item off the menu.
There was one item whose description included two words I recognized, "Boeuf" and something to the order of "Marinate" or "Spice". So I said to myself "What the heck, I'm fed up of eating spiceless French food for the last one month. Lets try out this marinated-beef thingy".
The cute waitress comes back after a while, puts down a plate in front of me, points to it and says "Magnifique ! Bon Appetit". I give her the standard "Merci Beaucoup" reply and look down at my plate. There were thin slices of completely raw beef "marinated" in olive oil and garnished with cilantro (or some green looking "stuff").
I looked up at her and said "Seriously, you have got to be kidding me. Did you just run out of gas or did the cook just forget to well.. um.. 'cook' it ?". She obviously didnt understand a word I said, gave me another cute smile, said "Bon Appetite", and walked off.
I wanted to order something else or walk away, but I didnt want to hurt her feelings. So I decided to at least give the dish a try. Contrary to what I had expected, it didnt taste that bad after all. Soon I was digging into it with a gusto.
Then suddenly it struck me. "Didnt they used to have the Mad Cow disease recently in UK/Europe ?? Don't they have the Foot & Mouth disease going on right now ??"
So I put down my fork, paid the bill, got up, and went across the street to the McDonalds where a nice picture menu was waiting for me.
posted by Fosix at 10:09 PM
16 Comments:
My "beef" is that you got to meet a pretty french waitress :P
So something actually stopped you from finishing your meat??
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I dont understand why everyone is expected to speak English! No wonder the language of the world today IS bad English. Oh Paris...the very name puts a smile on my face. I am a vegetarian in France and I never had problems getting decent food! Paris has Italian, Greek, Moroccon, Chinese, 'Indian'...restaurants all around! Why were you eating only bland French food hain? Really!
McDonalds sucks anyway. Booo! And 'didnt want to hurt her feelings' ROTFL! Whats that about?
@seashells
Damn, she was soooo cute :))
But did I mention that I could only manage to speak llike three sentences with her :((
@second_wind
It was one time thing... I can assure you that it will never happen again... :P
@the-artist-formerly-known-as-crouching-tigress
I didnt expect her to speak Anglais... I just needed her to translate the menu for me...
I used to eat at Greek, Moroccon and Chinese all the time... I was in a strange neighbourhood and starving... Thats why I walked into the first restaurant I found...
Speaking of food, the Moroccon/Algerian Merguez Sausage is simple awesome !! You should try it sometime :P
About Indian food... Well, thats another story... Another post...
With regards to "hurting her feelings"... It may seem strange and alien to you, but some of us do experience things like "emotions", "compassion", "feelings", "sympathy", etc, etc :P :P
Ah la vache! raw meat! I guess that was man's natural diet before we evolved into herbivores. But still, I wouldn't eat raw meat even if Van Damne asked me to! I take it the french waitress delighted your senses - especially the sense of sight ;)
You dont seem to be very bright. My 'new' blogging name is long and the one you use for me is just darn short! I am sure you wouldve understood her if she had translated the menu for you in Arabic! So really you didnt expect her to speak 'en anglais', I buy that. And stop giving people useless food advice. I dont know why some non vegetarians find it so damn fucking hard to be happy in their own meaty worlds!
Btw, I make yummy chicken biryani..and you aint gonna get any nyah nyah.
Also, good try 'Don' you almost hurt my non existent feelings!
@votre chérie
Not sure if I mentioned this before ;) but the waitress was so damn cute :))
@searching-for-what-was-that-again?
How can you make chicken biryani if you are an eggetarian ? Cooking an egg doesnt exactly make it a chicken you know :P :P
Bah! You are dumber than I thought. Boringly presumptuous to boot. There are many vegetarians who cook meat. Au revoir! Or in good old English, goodbye!
@searchin...
But I wont be dumb for long... Chérie's gonna make me a machine that will make me smart... Wuhoo !!
@at-a-vegetarian-friend-of-mine(you know who you are)
Take an example from CT... Next time you intend to poison me, can you at least make make it a chicken dish ? :P :))
Sorry to hear about your experiences in terms of spiceless food. I one time visited Paris for a week on vacation and I literally survived on bread and cheese because I am a vegetarian.
@sinusoidally
Oh that sucks... I loved the French bread, though I don't think I could survive a whole week on a diet of French bread and cheese... Well, if the cheese was La Vache Qui Rit, then I guess I could survive for two-three days on that :)
so you finally figured out the picture thingy :)
yup, figured it out with the help of a confidential source whose name i decline to mention for security reasons (i could tell you, but then i'd have to kill you) :P
btw, why would you wake me up so early (11am??) on a saturday morning ? dont the words "intolerable cruelty" mean anything to you ?? ;) :P
luckily, there was sunday and my body was able to recover from the severe shock and trauma of the previous morning... :)
I was actually wondering if that Swathi's blog was mine n had a smile when indeed it was :))
I had tough time in Brussels with ppl speaking only French n more french (was glad when i heard that the job scene in Brussels suffers 'coz of non-english speaking folks out there...)
I'm impressed with your site, very nice graphics!
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