Basha - Evil Repast

It isn't merely the customers that are the enemy at this horrid kiosk, but the food itself.
As night turns into day and day into lunchtime, my colleagues and I once again need to feed, so we limp over to the food court to get slopped. Complexe Desjardins is the destination today and with daily renewed optimism we head down the escalator.
Humans, masticating their allotments, adorn fibre-formed chairs, while acres of flaccid humanity jostle for position. It is a moment of distaste and resignation. Despite ourselves, growing excited from hunger, we hoof the paddock, our anuses contracting wildly.
I join the line at Basha, kiosk of Mediterranean effrontery. Solemnly, we each submit to processing, patiently shifting forward by turns. Borrowing the will of the citizen ahead, I move into the vacancy she leaves behind, a despairing peristalsis urging us unto our destiny. My stomach roils as I approach “The Butcher”, seething with brutality, grunting suggestively. I quickly survey the mounds of bland garnishing the trough while rehearsing my order, wary of making my host angry.
He swings the Styrofoam, angrily slamming in the hummus. His graceless gestures are automated by repetition; scoop, flick-wrist, splot. The mucuosoidal, garlic slick hits the polystyrene packet with ugly menace. He wants to hurt this food.
The box gets handed off to his gangly team mate whom I stop mid-shovel to prevent rice from becoming part of my tasteless noontime equation. “Can I get some tabouli instead of rice?” I ask in my most cringingly servile tone. “No.” he says and goes for the potatoes; the other of my permitted options. “What if I pay extra?” “No.” he shoots back. Apparently the seeping piles of leaf are not for sale; Display only, merely a visual emetic, adding insult to injury.
The grease soaked and dripping container sails out towards me from his outstretched arm, the contents audibly slopping to one side from the momentum. Dejected, I limp toward the cashier for final punishment.
Following my colonic analogy, this snake-faced crag is the rectum of the outfit. There is just one operation left before I am squeezed out and pinched off.
40 cents of repugnant slough, drifting queasily in weepy box, dished out by foul tempered bullies, costs 9 dollars these days.
As I slump willessly back into the sweating throng, I no longer need to eat, self-loathing filling my stomach.


2 Comments:
Howdy!
Yo! Dude! Ain't no need to descend into a mall in order to eat - haven't you seen George Romero's Night of the Living Dead?
Go to Chinatown . The place on the northwest corner of La Gauchetiere and Saint Laurent makes incredible takeout duck, and the Vietnamese subs are almost as good, but only $2.25 (the duck is slightly more).
Slightly up the street and to your left (at the northeast corner of Clark and Rene Levesque) is this walk up restaurant - $10 gets you lunch, dinner and leftovers for the following morning.
For a change of pace, walk the extra block down to Clark and Viger) and do Dim Dum at the Ruby-Rouge, even if you are starving, and haven't eaten for a week, you will be unable to spend more than $15. When you order off the menu everything comes piping hot.
Then when you want to splurge, go to Beijing (southeast corner Saint Urbain and La Gauchetiere) $12 gets you happily stuffed, with beer, and tip. Go for the Hot and Sour soup, and anything with the XO sauce.
Apologies for not knowing the names of some of the restaurants, but they are all Greek to me. And please, please if you can don't ever step foot in Complexe Desjardins again, it only works if it is -40 and you need to get from Old Montreal to Downtown underground.
Howdy!
Dim Sum... sorry.
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