khana

I was sitting alone in a very cliched Chinese Restaurant in the Beaver Square Strip Mall in Beavercreek, Ohio and pathos gripped me suddenly. I was devouring General Fang's (or was it Wang?) Chicken which was greasy and tasteless at the same time and I could feel the heavy drops of despondency run through my veins. Has it really come to this?, I thought to myself as I spiked the fork into the dead chicken. It was dead and ended up as bad food on my plate. I felt sorry for it. It had died in vain, from my perspective that is.

See, I moved to Columbus Ohio in November 2005 from the San Francisco Bay Area. It is not very hard to find good restaurants near good old SF. True connoisseurs can find good eateries in varied cuisines. Hell, I even know a Peruvian restaurant that I like, that too in downtown San Francisco. But Ohio is another story.

I drive 65+ miles to Fairborn Ohio for work, three days a week. Everyday I am in Fairborn, at lunch hour I search the citysearch and google local sites to find a good restaurant to eat. It's easier these days, with millions of people getting on the internet and leaving feedback or ratings for restaurants; shamelessly gloating about their favorite eating joints and carelessly bashing others which they loathe (like I am doing to this Chinese restaurant). I have tried a few of them and haven't really liked any and hence I usually resort to the chained ones ....as in Olive Garden, Don Pablos, Panera Bread and the likes. But that day I had to eat Chinese and the reviews said "food rather malaysian or singapoeran than chinese.....with a touch of blah blah...."; and I thought, Even Better!. So I got the map and drove 4 miles to Beaver Square. At first I couldn't locate the restaurant, although it was right there, facing the street. No red decorative arches, no dragons, no generalizations! I entered and it was a modest place with ten tables at the most. The buffet serving area gave me the first indication of how the food is going to be. But still I went ahead and said "Table For one please" and the waitress obliged. You are a courageous hungry man Shailesh, I said to myself. Even the restaurant name was cliched...'Big Wall'!!! I should I have known better.

Just a week before this disconcerting experience, I had driven 4 miles in another direction to try out a pizza place just because it was called Giovanni's. You see, there is this nice Italian Pizza place in Sunnyvale not far from where I worked in California, which served the best New York style pizza and was called ........you guessed it right... Giovanni's. The one in Fairborn Ohio was not even close. Actually if the waitress there wasn't very polite, I might have just walked out after taking the first bite of pizza.

So I guess for now, it makes sense for me to bring food from home. It is healthy, it saves money and it sure as hell tastes good. In all modesty I am a very good cook and for lack of good restaurants it makes sense to bring food to work! Bon Apetit!