'The worst meal I've ever tasted'

'May l please have today's special'. said undercover solo food critic, Treasure McBright after handing back the menu. Treasure McBright. She is the world renowned food critic whose reviews make or break a restaurant’s global image and she's a solo traveller whose image is not known by most people. It was her first time in that restaurant, she was open to exploring the country's cuisine and had seen that restaurant through a TripAdvisor blog.

The menu of the day suggested that she would be tasting the best spaghetti Bolognese in town. She was taken back to the spaghetti Bolognese she tasted in Italy, it was the best ever! She started salivating when thinking of the delicious aroma of the mixture of ingredients in that Bolognese she tasted years back. Her throat muscles were condensing and expanding even before the food came, one would say it was the body’s preparedness mechanism when one is anticipating a great sensation of some kind of taste.

Thirty minutes passed not even water was brought to the table, she started looking around and waving her hand to try draw the waiters or waitresses towards her table but none came, she could not understand her predicament as her imagination of tasting the Italian dish was being distorted by the conduct of the restaurant staff. At first she didn’t really put much to it as it seemed to be a busy lunch hour rush.

A man minding his own business across the table to Treasure's asked the waiter serving him to assist the lady waiving, but he ignored her and went back to the kitchen. Treasure started to feel infuriated by the treatment she was getting as a black person in a commonly white restaurant, she noted that almost everyone wo entered after her was being served while she was waiting for her turn. She grabbed the next available waiter passing by and demanded to see the manager. It took the manager almost thirty more minutes to attend to the matter claiming he was busy, worse he didn't see why Treasure was making it a big deal but the man opposite Treasure’s table interjected by first introducing himself as Bob. He told them to give her all she wants or she will be sending his recording of this mistreatment. He mentioned that for a while he has been seeing how the lady was being ignored by the staff, or was it they got an instruction from higher to act in that manner towards her as it was strange how they were all following same pattern of pretending they didn’t see her waving and calling out.

The manager seemed to be apologetic in front of the Bob, who was well dressed in a black bore tie suit. The manager then ordered staff to attend to Treasure.  Treasure told the waiter that she needed lemon iced water to calm her down…Imagine of thinking of the iced water’s calming effect then you get tap warm water, she asked the waiter serving her, what was that he brought. “Ma’am it’s the water you requested’ said the waiter. Bob told the waiter that if they continued he would post the recording of their misconduct.

In as much as Treasure wanted to grab her bag and leave, now she had something to write about in her reviews but at the same time she had some glimpse of hope that the spaghetti Bolognese would erase all the mishap of that day.

It was almost two full hours of misconduct, finally the dish she had been waiting for arrived. What struck her the most was the presentation, seemed a little uncanny to the eye but she gave them the benefit of the doubt that they just might wow her taste buds regardless of the appearance, of course it was nothing to write home about but the glimpse of hope made her to dive in.

Treasure choked and asked what acidic substance was added in that dish, she is normally a healthy person without any known allergies. Bob across her table was disturbed by this and asked Treasure’s consent to post the recording but Treasure thanked Bob and told him, she will deal with it her own way but would need his number in case a witness is needed to support. Bob shared his number with her. Treasure called for the manager again who for some reason came promptly unlike the first time when he was discriminating her in full view of other customers. Treasure told the manager this was the worst she has been treated and the worst meal she has ever tasted, it was even more toxic and deadly, thank God she didn’t swallow any of it though her mouth was a bit inflamed from the strong acid in the dish. The manager told her that was their special dish of the day and didn’t know why it made her choke. Treasure asked him to taste it himself but the manager refused, so there were a lot of assumptions racing through Treasure’s  brain cells at that juncture, “could it be they deliberately tried to poison her and get her type not to enter that restaurant again, was it that the chef was under pressure and accidentally added too much acid to the Bolognese, was it that they didn’t like her casual dress code in the almost formal restaurant, what is it really that made them mistreat her the second she sat and ordered, if they didn’t want her type so bad, they could have blocked her from coming in the restaurant than to humiliate her in public, were this people who showed no remorse to their misconduct worth forgiving?, if so how will others learn as every human has the right to choose where to eat and needs to be treated equally despite one’s skin colour or race as long as you have money to pay. What was also racing through her mind was Bob’s attitude towards her ordeal, it gave her hope that no matter where you are in the world, someone or maybe you can say there is always a guardian angel in human form who will stand up for you and look out for you when others shy away without confronting a misconduct. So in short Treasure deduced that if one supports a misconduct being done on another it means that person supports the wrong doing by turning a blind eye to wrong doing. Treasure’s predicament was more of a lesson as she had spent time travelling and being treated with decency than this time around where her emotions were challenged in all aspects; Physical, mental and spiritual.

Treasure’s review was simple. “If you are black, make sure you don’t go past Pete’s Italian cuisine restaurant commonly shown in the TripAdvisor’s blog, from manager down to waiters and waitresses, they will bend you and break you emotionally such that you might even leave through a stretcher from the allergic reactions you will get from the food they will serve you, and yet you joyfully entered the restaurant walking to explore the country’s cuisine. Go at your own risk black brothers and sisters, I got the worst meal l ever tasted.” Unapologetically signing off. Treasure McBright your undercover solo food critic.