progress

Over the past few months, my favorite Indian restaurant has been in the process of being remodeled. Each time I walk in it looks less and less like the comfy hole-in-the-wall eatery I first started going to. The first thing to be added was a buffet option. The table started out in various makeshift forms until a permanent fixture was added. Recently though the various changes and additions have sprung up with alarmingly rapidity. The tacky, Nickelodeon-orange, wooden booths in the front area, where orders were placed, were stripped away, as well as the partitioning wall. The once few oversized tables, which accommodated large Indian family gatherings, were replaced with an array of more modest sized ones. White table cloths were added. Plate-glass table tops were added. The eco-unfriendly Styrofoam dinnerware and plastic utensils were replaced with real plates, glasses and silverware. The self-serve water cooler disappeared. The clientele also changed accordingly.

And today to my even further dismay, I walked in to discover that I not only had to wait to be seated but was also given a laminated menu from a waiter(!) instead of just ordering from the counter. The front staff had changed and only when I saw people pop in and out of the kitchen did I recognize a couple faces. I miss the teenage girl who worked the register. She caught on that I was only ordering the buffet if it had mattar paneer, and so whenever I walked in she'd either smile and hand me a plate or give me a pouting face and shake her head so that I knew to order something off the menu instead. In fact, all that remains of the old aesthetic is the once beloved projector which still screens cheesy Indian movies on the back wall to watch while dining, but somehow amid this new sterile ambiance the projected films feel like an awkward relic of an eatery now gone.