As soon as you enter a food joint in saddi Delhi, the first thing you get is a glass full of thanda thanda paani.

You slurp the water slowly, while checking out the menu (and the hot chick on the next table) and decide your order. Personally, instead of slurping, I prefer to blow bubbles into the glass of water, making irritating sounds. Some useless research in a US university has shown that this irritating sound tickles your pituitary gland, which in turn releases decision making hormones.. :P Needless to say, i am totally incapable of deciding and ordering food in restaurants. My mind goes completely blank when someone asks me to order food for myself. I think she will vouch for this fact.

Anyways, coming back to the topic, in the restaurants in this ice covered country, there is no concept of free water!! You got to "order" water, and yeah, always (by always i mean ALWAYS) say it as Plain Water! If you just say water, these guys will bring you Soda! Apparently, very few people like normal water here, everyone usually drinks soda here day and night! (Saale half-bewde!) :P

On top of it, a 1 litre bottle of plain water costs you about 1 Euro = 62 Rupees! Abe!! Amitabh Bacchan ke charan dhoye hain kya is paani se jo itna mehnga hai?? Paani to paani hai na bhai!!

On a side note, you get a 5 litre huge bottle of plain water from super market at about 70Rs. Yeah, I carry the big 5 litre jar in my bag all the time! (If you didn't realize - I am half crazy and half cheapo )

Next comes the sauce and the chutney! I thought it is basic common sense that when a person is ordering Chow-min (noodles, speghetti or whatever you like to call it), he will always be served a chutney box with a set of 4 chutney's on the table! (Tomato ketchup, Vinegar (with small pieces of green chilly), Soya Sauce and hari chutney in the exact same order!!)

As you must have guessed it by now, we do not get any complimentary sauces or chutneys here!! Its again by order! On top of that, they only have garlic sauce, tomato ketchup and chilly sauce!! No vinegar or green chutney!! How on this earth a man is supposed to eat his chowmin without adding vinegar with little pieces of green chilly ? !! ??

And each of the chutney you order, adds about 20Rs to your bill!! Itne paise me to mere ghar ke bahar vali dukaan me full plate noodles mil jate the! :(   Ghor Kalyug hai bhai!

Anyways, I had both these weird realizations today, when I went out to eat some chowmin for my 4pm post-lunch snacks I forgot my wallet at home and only had pocket change to order food. The situation was similar to shopping on the last day on the month, when you have no money left and you start cutting off the ad-ons from the list and just buy the necessary stuff. The add ons were chutneys and paani, whereas the necessary stuff was Chowmin in this case :( :(

Life is pretty bad at the moment if you ask me!