THE SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK NOOS

“Eat what you want
Pay as you wish”

It’s a concept I’m not quite familiar with. I did a few mini-double takes of the slogan at the top of the menu, just to be sure. I was sitting in an Indian restaurant with fellow Ion Global-ers* Philip and Suba. Suba had told us about this place—which sounded somewhat mystical and terribly new agey to me—where a person could go and eat all they wanted, ALL THEY WANTED, and at the end decide how much they would pay for the meal. There was no bill. There were no prices on the menu. This Oz, this Eden, this other world, simply lets the customer do the math.

“No way,” Philip had said, in his typically, disbelieving Californian way. The same kind of tone he used a bit later during lunch when I was talking about good Australian wines.

But ‘Way!’ There we were. Eating all we could and contemplating just how much we thought the vegetarian belly timber was worth. I think because we were all a little chuffed at the concept—the downright wonderful ethic of it all, the beauty of the ‘you decide the value and we’ll let you scarper no questions asked’ ideal—well I think, actually I’m pretty sure, we overpaid.

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