Dr. Atkins
Ended up going to an Indian restaurant instead last night - the Ashoka on Elderslie Street in Glasgow. Is Ashoka a big chain or something? I’ve seen three now, including one that’s popped up at the side of the M8 amongst KFCs and Pizza Huts.
The Ashoka last night, however wasn’t at all fast food. It looked like a cross between the set of Twin Peaks (The bit with all the red curtains and the midget) and something from a Tim Burton film. Thankfully though, the waiter didn’t speak backwards.
I feel bad though because it seemed like a really nice restaurant that we didn’t do any justice to because Dr. Atkins forbid just about everything on the menu. The menu had things like “This dish is cooked with plenty of love” written on it just to make us feel extra bad about having to fall back onto the ‘western dishes’ section.
I should point out here that I’m not on the Atkins diet - the missus is. We deliberated, pored over the scant and often contradictory scientific facts and decided to give it a trial. As a diet it’s surprisingly easy to stick to, even when eating out. Apart from in Indian restaurants. In hindsight we probably should have gone elsewhere.
I ordered a chicken nentara and my wife ordered some chicken supreme with salad. We could hear the disbelief of the chef in our heads, “They come to this fine place of authentic Indian cuisine - a place where I cook the food with care and with love and she orders chicken supreme?? Who are these crazy British fools?”
The chicken supreme came. It had one and a bit pieces of chicken, a small side salad and the largest pile of chips known to man. Seriously, it was a chip-mountain. To an Atkins sufferer the torture of having to eat one third of a plate of food and ignore the perfectly, (and lovingly,) fried mound of chips wafting up your nostrils is indescribable.
I found it extremely funny, but I think I hid it well.
The downside of living with an Atkins sufferer is that your diet changes too. My wife hasn’t so much lost a lot of weight as much as given a lot of weight to me. It’s not ‘lost’ - I know exactly where it is. I’m eating much more than I used to. I had my chicken nentara and guess who had to deal with the chips?
Then afterwards came the final tortuous blow. The non-midget waiter came round not once, but twice - “Would the lady like a ferrero rocher?”
The lady did, but refrained in a display of willpower that was extremely impressive. I on the other hand helped myself to the chocolates out of sheer politeness.
Next time we’ll go back and eat properly.
Add comment February 6th, 2004