I went with
my sister to do some
food tourism at a
Melanesian restaurant in
Amherst. We were pretty excited, having never seen a Melanesian restaurant before.
We managed to say the words as written on the menu (i always get a little
performance anxiety when it comes to ordering anyway), but then he asked: What kind of rice do you want?
To
buy time, to find out more, i said,
What do you have? The answer: white rice, brown rice,
curly rice.
my eyes widened. i looked across the table at my sister and said, curly rice? I tried to imagine massively long-grained rice, probably reddish, like shiny and vegetative grubs...
Embarassed, she corrected me in a whisper: he said curry rice!.
i flushed, sank in my seat, and ordered the white rice. i couldn't look at him again. We left a big tip.