Why I Hate Eating Out?

In the last decade, restaurants and cafes have mushroomed across the world, offering us umpteen options to explore. Delicious Biryani, the perfect VEG Ramen bowl meal, hunting down the alleys to find the best Pizzas in town, a good breakfast place serving almost authentic Dosa, Pyaaz Kachoris and their different versions, you name it and we would have been there to try it out.

Thanks to Instagram stories, the new age micro blogging food influencers, and groups on social media that talk about food, we start building a list of places to visit and somehow, the checklist is never ending. Eating out has never been this easy and quick.

Let's jog 20 years down the memory lane, the time where there existed only a handful of restaurants and a lot of other small local joints. I have never known why but north Indian cuisine, or best known as Punjabi, was dearest to everybody back then. Every family had their one special favorite restaurant which was visited only on certain special days in a year.

There would be this one waiter who recognizes you the moment you walk in and gives you the table you sit everytime. Infact, he even knows what your family likes. You trust him enough that he is surely going to ask the chef to add some extra paneer in your sabji or get hot Gulab Jamuns on the house. This made us all feel so special and cared for,

I might not recall how the pasta tasted in this ultra snazzy cafe I visited 2 days back. But I can never forget the heavenly taste of the Dal served in a dhaba that my father used to visit in his teens and then later took us there, to become a part of the legacy.

Back then, our parents did not find it necessary to splurge exorbitantly on food, but with the budget they had for it, they knew how to make the most out of it for it became more of an occasion in itself.

The hype created a month before actually visiting the place, planning what to wear for the occasion, the whole extended family used to sit, talk and eat together, the joy in eating the ice cream slowly, savoring every morsel of it, reminiscing those times makes me yearn for that kind of bliss again.

The new generation will never be able to experience this kind of pleasure for everything is easily available to them,eating out has become a regular activity. Who cares if you have relatives coming in? Food is now just a call/click away. I will always feel sad for them. They will never be able to value the little nothings.

How I miss those days terribly.