Saturday, January 21, 2006
Dinner at Pepper LunchThe other day, I was having dinner at this concept restaurant,
Pepper Lunch with my friend. She was telling me that it's like the latest teppanyaki dining in vogue.
Beef with corn rice
Chicken & Salmon
I don't know what is so fantastic about this
Pepper Lunch, but I always see a long queue forming. Seriously, I think that the staffs are having problems coordinating and managing their queue effectively because I see numerous empty tables when I enter the restaurant.
In actual fact, I don't know whether to term
Pepper Lunch as a restaurant, fast food or whatever, because the style is somewhat like fast food, but yet prices are like restaurant level. On second thoughts, I think it's more expensive than the mid-range restaurants lor! I mean, at least those mid-range restaurants cook and serve the food for you. At
Pepper Lunch, you cook your own freaking food and end up smelling like BBQ food for the rest of the day. The freaking food on the hotplate and drink cost me $15 in total. I think I'm being overcharged lor!
The whole restaurant was actually quite noisy with all the “
Zzzz Zzz” sizzling sounds on the hotplate. People were busy concentrating on cooking their food to notice that they are actually overcharged. Quite chaotic actually.
Anyway, although the wait in the queue was quite long, we didn't have to wait uber long for our food though. I mean, essentially, they just need to cut the meat and dump it together with the vegetables on the hotplate, then serve. Like, how long could this take?! They don't have to cook mah! We cook ourselves! The enthusiastic waiter who brings the food to your table will then “teach” you how to cook your food. "
You spread the special butter on the meat, cook for a minute, then start on the vegetables. Only add the special sauces when your food is cooked.” I suppose they repeat these instructions umpteen times per day.
I think Japanese people are very clever to come up with this concept. They charge restaurant prices for fast food to be cooked by customers themselves. Cool right?
Which brings me to this, I was telling my friend,"
Hey, this concept so clever hor! I think it suits me lor, that is, if I open a restaurant. I don't know how to cook mah. So I shall start a restaurant with a similar concept, then tell people that I have ultra special butter and ultra special sauces that will bound to make your food uber delicious! I just need to prepare the vegetables and maybe marinate the meat a bit. Maybe the marinating part, I will engage Mr Eeyore to do it. He's better at these stuffs than me. Then hor, if people say my food nice, I tell them it's because of my ultra special butter and ultra special sauces. If they say not nice hor, I tell them it's because they don't know how to cook lor! Try harder next time! No need to stress about how good the food will taste, it shall be their individual style and responsibility. Like, cool right?”
Granted, the food is actually ok, but not much variety. They only have like 95% beef dishes (which I don't take) and remaining 5% chicken and salmon. Actually, if I don't remember wrongly, that 5% is like only 4 dishes. Talk about variety.
I guess I will not be stepping into
Pepper Lunch for quite sometime. That is, until I want to try some cooking on my own.
Labels: Food
