Special Pasta

The very first day, itself, when I met him in the office, he talked about it. It was on his mind for a long time. He had heard so many stories from other desis about this special pasta that when we discussed Friday lunch, he immediately brought up this place. The only problem was that it was 25 miles away, so the pasta always ended up eaten tomorrow. He marketed it well, though. He said that since we were going by I355 (highway), it wont take more than 30 minutes one way and with 30 minutes to eat, we could make it in 1 1/2 hrs. Yet, every Monday we met and discussed last Friday's lunch we promised to go there that Friday.

Until almost 10 months later, that one Friday Raj & I finally decided to give it a try. Our other two Friday lunch regulars excused out, but I with my Bachelor spirits kicking decided to do it alone with Raj. It took us exactly 35 minutes to hit the place. The restaurant was located in a hotel and when we went in, only one table was full, not very heartening I would say. We seated ourselves a bit apprehensively and enquired about the chef who prepared the special pasta. We took a sigh of relief when she came out finally to prepare it up for us. She looked more Hispanic to me than Italian but as long as she prepared good pasta, we didn't care.

She invited us over to the pasta bar, and asked us to choose out ingredients for the pasta. The bar had bow tie & spaghetti style of pastas, choice of marinara or alfredo sauces, various kinds of vegis including green peppers, beans, carrot, etc. On the side were various kinds of condiments like garlic, ginger, chili peppers and other spices. I got big spoons of garlic, ginger and peppers added in besides everything else. She put them all a small pan and simmered it up on a small stove right on the bar for a couple of minutes and served it up in a bowl. Hungry as we were, we attacked the hot and steamy pasta and thought that it totally lived up to the hype that was created over almost a year. We were out of there in literally 1/2 hr and back in the office in the next 1/2. Our colleagues hadn't made much of progress with their work, and totally regretted having missed the pasta when we described it to them.

Coincidently it also turned out to be our last week in that office as we moved to the client's new setup the next week. I walked out a happy man because I kept my promise and fulfilled Raj’s long time wish.