Nonsense!
The final word of the lady squabbling for her rightful place in the restaurant with the phone attendant, parcel handler, waiting-list name caller cum manager, who at times rushed a few metres outside the restaurant to locate people who noted their names. Perhaps waiting was too much to ask in a country where a microchipped entrepreneur has declared that Indians deserve everything within seven minutes.
The lady, by her own account, had called the all-in-one ringmaster of the restaurant with a perfectly reasonable question: Till when will the restaurant be open? Perhaps in between the wails of children, sweeping shattered glass off the floor, answering the same question for the fifteenth time from people in the queue about when exactly their turn would arrive, and furiously striking off names from his notepad – people who were inside, outside, almost inside, briefly visible and then mysteriously invisible – he replied over the phone, without explanation and reassurance: Till 10 pm.
The lady, quite reasonably in her own mind, decided to travel all the way from HSR Layout to Indiranagar in Bangalore on a Saturday evening, reaching ten minutes short of closing time, and demanded her rightful place. He replied, Ma’am, the restaurant is open till 10 pm, which doesn’t guarantee a seat though. It made sense neither to her nor, perhaps, entirely to the ringmaster himself, who must have muttered “nonsense” under his breath.
Overlooking the proceedings, perhaps in quiet disbelief at the scale of the rush, stood the septuagenarian founder – a second-generation Chinese from China’s Canton province, moved from Kolkata to Bangalore a few decades ago, trying to fathom whether people were lining up for food or to feed a collective nostalgia for classic-style Chinese cuisine. What had once survived on reputation, memory, and word of mouth now found itself propelled by reels. Instagram had brought him fame of a newer, louder kind – along with fresh challenges: expectations without context, and a demand shaped by algorithms. Somewhere between the chaos and the kitchen’s steady rhythm, he must have wondered how to learn this new language of urgency, while quietly feeling proud that something, at least, is still working.
The menu was handed to us in haste, completely understandable. During our wait outside, we had already read the menu online, scrolled through multiple reviews, seen pictures, judged the demographics of the reviewers, and decided why some people wouldn’t like the food and why we absolutely would. Within a fraction of a second of receiving the menu, we started blurting out our order.
“Sir, wait, I am coming,” said the waiter, with the Nirvana band’s wobbly, cross-eyed smile tattooed on his neck.
Who orders so fast? – He must have wondered.
Soon enough, the Lung Fung soup, Chilly Roasted Pork, Kung Pao Chicken and Mixed Fried rice arrived. We helped ourselves. The soup was delicate, with tender chicken and shrimp. The pork – thinly sliced, cooked in soy sauce was melt-in-the-mouth. The chicken was rich and comforting, in a peanut-based sauce. Everything simply worked. This is old Indo-Chinese food. Dishes shaped by repetition and memory, cooked the same way for years because there was no reason to change them.
Wanley Restaurant was established sometime in the 1990s, and serves old-style Indo-Chinese food of the kind in found in Chinatown, Kolkata and a few places in Park Street, Kolkata and a few restaurants in Guwahati like the classic Chung Fa (now closed, but fondly remembered by old Guwahatians)
As we ate, the restuarant settled into something quieter, almost domestic. A family met two other families they knew, separately, in fragments, exchanging brief smiles and updates. Another family of four, they ordered without studying the menu: fried rice and chilli chicken. Perhaps these were the only Chinese dishes they trusted, the ones that had survived years of birthdays and Sunday lunches, safe from disappointment.
Perhaps that is the real reason people line up, for a taste that remains unmoved by time, indifferent to clocks and algorithms. And for that, the wait however unreasonable, does not feel like nonsense at all and feels like remembrance.
Further Reading about Wanley Restaurant – https://www.thehindu.com/food/features/the-history-and-legacy-of-the-indo-chinese-restaurants-of-bengaluru/article69131171.ece
Wanley Restaurant Location – 421/P, Shri Krishna Temple Rd, Indira Nagar 1st Stage, Stage 1, Indiranagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560038
https://maps.app.goo.gl/g6vSRWqWEF7TbEs1A