Order un-envy

Let me begin by saying that food is not the only thing in Nada's head. There's lots of other stuff floating in there too, like: Why don't airplanes have the reverse gear? (And if they did, would they be able to reverse in the sky?) Do animals dream? If so, what about? Why on earth to people think it's okay to leave their homes and go into town, malls, etc. in their slippers!!!!!?????
But I digress.

By the time LB and I were ready for dinner last night, it was already very late. With most restaurants closing their kitchens at 22:00, we asked the hotel to reccommend a restaurant that serves dinner till late. They told us about Fisherman's Arms in Victoria (the capital of all 115 islands that make up the Seychelles), a 10-minute drive from Bel Ombre, where our hotel is situated. Food orders end at 23:00, so after getting directions, we zoomed off at 22:40 in search of Fisherman's Arms. We made it to Victoria in record time and spent about three minutes getting lost before finding the place.

We walked into the establishment with four minutes to spare. Our waitress gave us our menus and hovered around our table while we perused it. She kept looking in the direction of the kitchen. Feeling rather rushed, we skimmed through the menu and rattled off items that sounded familiar and quick to prepare. Chicken wings. Two portions. Chips. Two portions. Potato salad. One portion. Fish rolls (we'd tried these in another restaurant and they tasted very good indeed). One portion. Two bottles of water. One Bitter Lemon (tastes kinda like fizzy Lemonade). One beer.

The pursuing conversation still makes me chuckle.
Me: This place looks like ...
LB: A dive.
Me: I was looking for a polite word for 'tacky'.
LB: It's a dive.

Imagine a large room with lots of round tables, white table cloths with maroon overlays and whicker chairs. There's a casino right next door which can be entered through this joint, I think, because what I took to be the jackpot amount was flashing in fluorescent strobe lights in the bar area of the restaurant.

Our food arrived in less than ten minutes and the six plates took up most of the table. For the first time that I can remember I experienced the opposite of order envy. The sight of all that food (especially at 23:12) filled me with dread.

The chicken wings were garnished with cucumber sticks, carrot sticks and what looked like potato chips. LB put the whole 'chip' in her mouth before realising what it was.

"Oh no, this is cheese!" LB said, pulling a face. "And it tastes like a blend, cheddar or something." Oh dear, all the gourmet cheeses we'd been devouring the whole week had turned LB into a cheese snob.

The chicken wings and chips were surprisingly good. The potato salad had corn, ham and way too much mayonnaise in it, so we didn't get very far with that. We left the fish rolls untouched. The bill was by far the cheapest we'd paid for food here.

"Oh well, at least we can say we've experienced different kinds of dinning in the Seychelles," LB reasoned. I couldn't argue with that.