Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Slow on the Fastfood

It must be all those long dinners and lunches. (I've been to lunch at a neighbor's that began at one and ended at seven!) Something in the French brain makes it so that they don't understand the concept of fastfood, so even if Pierre claims to like McDonalds, I can never let him order alone. There's always an incident.

One time he announces, "I want a Best of Menu." "What kind, mister?" the counter girl asks. He just looks at her. "A Big Mac, a Royal Deluxe, a McChicken, or a McNuggets, mister?" His eyes open wide. "Oh, I have to choose?" "Yes, mister" she responds. "Big Mac, please." He looks content with himself. "With what, mister?" the girl continues. "What what?" says my husband. "With what siding?" (She seems to have lost some respect.) Long silence. "Regular fries, fat fries, or a salad," she enumerates. "Fries." "Regular or fat?" He starts to look confused. "Uhmmm..... regular." "And what drink?" I finally butt in, "Just give him a medium Sprite."

Another time he was torn between two sandwiches, I forget which ones exactly, let's call them Royal Burger A and Royal Burger B. "How is A different from B?" he asks the hapless boy at the counter. "Uhm, the sauce, mister." Pierre is not content. "What about them?" The boy tries to appease him. "One is barbecue," He doesn't succeed. "And the way they are cooked," Pierre continues, "one is different from the other?" The boy glances behind him, looking for help, I imagine. I oblige. "It's McDonald's, honey." Pierre just looks at me. I take a deep breath. "They just take it all out of cartons and plastic bags." I speak slowly. "It's. Not. Real. Food." "Oh." He finally kind of gets it, I start to think. Until he begins again. "They taste how though?"

5 comments:

Leah said...

Your hubby is quite interesting huh? Maybe, he's just used to French cuisine?

Apol said...

Oh, yes, LEAH, he's very French when it comes to food. He loves Filipino dishes, but will still discuss the flavor of the common adobo as he would a French dish. "Toyo at suka lang yan, honey, ano!" I exclaim in exasperation :)

mcsister said...

Do they actually call them French fries in France?

Anonymous said...

Pierre and I would get along in restaurants. I'm notoriously slow at ordering! It takes me forever to narrow down my choices, then I have to ask the waiter some questions about the dishes (and in this country, most times the wait staff have no idea what's in the food! Side story: I once asked the waiter how the dish was cooked and he replied, "Yes, ma'am, it's cooked."), then to top it all, whatever I finally decide on is often "out of stock!" (Don't you hate how often you hear that phrase around here?) Friends who've dined with me several times have gotten used to it, so they order ahead and tell the waiter to return when I'm ready. A couple of times (when we were planning to try a new restaurant), Felipe even visited the place ahead of time to get a copy of the menu, so that I would already know what I wanted as soon as we sat down. Maybe I was French in a past life? ;-)

Apol said...

MAYA, pommes frites ou les frites.

KATRINA, give Felipe a great boyfriend award, yah?!