Our Indian Buffet

When M graduated, he got a job and moved to his new city. We said our tearful goodbyes and had no plans to see each other again. We hadn't even discussed the possibility of visiting each other, although neither or us had discussed breaking up either.

Two days later I bought a place ticket and four days later I was on my way. I got there while he was still at work and he had to pay for my cab from the airport because my poor student budget was stretched beyond all means by the ticket. Then he took us out to dinner at a restaurant near the hotel he was staying in. We just drove around for two or three minutes and settled on the first Indian buffet we saw. M was excited to eat at a desi restaurant in this new area he lived in because it was well known for its large desi population and availability of desi food. Where we had lived before there were two desi restaurants - across the street from each other.

We ate our buffet dinner and we both thought it was fantastic. Over the course of the next four months we would eat there everything weekend I came to visit. Then we got married, and later moved to M's state, and we ate there almost every weekend for the first year of our marriage. 

Then we found out that we actually lived much closer to other stores and restaurants and we'd been driving in the opposite direction of our closest urban centers to get to this restaurant. We thought that the closest Costco/grocery store/restaurant areas had been there, but it turns out if we'd ventured just a little further north we could have found plenty of Indian buffets only minutes from us rather than half an hour away. So we stopped going.

This morning, in a fit of nostalgia, we're going back to our very first favorite Indian buffet. I'm hoping to each so much we won't have to eat again today. We're paying in cash since the cash price is different from the credit price. And I'm bringing home some jalebi with me.