Pizza observations from a window-side table

Wife said she was too tired to cook dinner and daughter suggested eating out at Pizza Hut.

"Let's go to Pizza Hut for dinner. Let Amy relish her pizza before she goes back to her UMT uni in KualaTerrengganu soon," dear wife said, always thinking about the children more than herself. Surely Kuala Terengganu is not such a sleepy and economic backwater that you can't get to eat pizza there, I amused myself silently in my head.

"OK we will feast out at Pizza Hut tonight ," I answered cheerfully as dear wife and daughter cast expectant looks in my direction. Actually I am not picky about food and usually go along with the rest of the family on the choice of what and where to eat.

By the time we got to the restaurant, it was already 3/4 full. The waiter ushered the three of us to a table beside the window. After taking a long time to select the food we finally settled for a conventional combo meal, meatball spaghetti and garden salad. After ordering the food and settling down I looked around the eatery.

Most of the tables were already taken although more customers were entering the restaurant. The crowd was a good mixed of young and old, family with their children, couples , teen ages . I saw Malays, Chinese and Indians happily devouring their food oblivious of one another's presence, true muhibbah or simply minding each other's business.

With the fuel price hike I thought that people would try to save money by eating at home instead of dinning out. Daily the media reports people grouching about the escalating cost of living due to price hikes and calling for drastic changes to their customery extravagant lifestyles. Yet tonight I am witnessing the public packing a western style fast food restaurant as if the food is FOC. How odd and contradictory.

Maybe the prices of local food have risen so much that they are almost the same as what the fast food restaurants are charging. Thus instead of patronising local fare, the public is willing to pay a little bit more to eat out in the comfort of these western style eateries. Nowadays if you have a big family, it may be cheaper to eat out than to cook in as the cost of ingredients to prepare food for home cooking has skyrocketed beyond comprehension. On the other hand the flock of people may be from the upper middle class who, hurt by rising inflation and no longer able to afford the luxury of dinning out in posh hotels and fancy restaurants decides to downgrade their dinning experience to convenient foods such as those offered by Pizza Hut, KFC, Mc Donalds, Old Town Kopitiam, etc

Price hike or not, and come what may when your tummy starts to rumble it is time to eat.