Chapter
Three:
Found:
Explosive Indian Food
On Old Pecos Trail, which we
find by taking a left at an abandoned gas station with a rusting sign advertising
gas for $1.36 a gallon (how long has that been out of business? Five years? One year?), we see a gas station with an Indian restaurant
tucked in to the right hand side of the cashier’s low building.
Since I am a sucker for Indian
food, we pull off the road, park just past the gas pumps. We enter the very small, almost
primitive three-or-four table restaurant.
We are warmly welcomed by
Patik, the waiter, who tells us the buffet table is next door in the gas
station cashier’s area, just beyond the trucker’s baseball hats, the aisles of
potato chips and snacks, the cans of motor oil and Diet Colas.
It was more than a little odd, to say the least, to be
filling a plate of chicken tikka, red dal curry, samosas, murgh musallam and
paratha bread in the same room where truck drivers and ordinary motorists pay
for their gas.
While we ate – and we were the
only customers actually sitting inside the restaurant – the chef and the waiter
spent a goodly amount of time with us.
They were probably lonely.
Patik pointed to the outside
patio, just to the right of the gas pumps. Although the concrete was cracked and patched, someone had attempted
to create a nice space there, with large, shade umbrellas advertising an
Italian wine and a fence with some dead flowers attached to it.
Patik said, “We cannot use that
patio.”
Why not?
“Oh, the fire department won’t
let us. They have closed our
beautiful patio.”
That sounded very unjust. Before we would attempt to organize
some sort of protest about that, as we have been known to do, we asked Patik to
explain.
“Well, you see, our patio is
too close to the gas tanks, which actually end directly under the front door of
the restaurant. The fire
department was worried that, if a customer lit a cigarette and then tossed the
match….”
Patik dramatically paused. He continued sadly but ominously, “And
in that case, this entire building would be blown to kingdom come.”
Maybe the fire department had a
point.
The meal, in my estimation, was
delicious. Grace thought it tasted of too much time on the steam table, but she
has higher standards when it comes to Indian food than I do. I figure that, as long as it has some
Indian spices and only upsets my stomach a little, I am satisfied.
I must admit, after Patik’s “kingdom
come” observation, we did eat a bit quickly.
As we left, we noticed a sign,
with bright red and white warning letters. It announced that the gas pump emergency shut-off valve was
located directly below and about four feet to the left of the restaurant
entrance.
I said that we should go back
to the restaurant some day soon because I enjoyed helping the underdog and the
food was good enough. Grace, with
images of all-consuming fireballs in mind, demurred. Alas, to be married to a woman with so little sense of
adventure.
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