Goulash Surprise
Rottentomato, owner of Shalampax’s Most Expensive Restaurant, has asked me to let his customers and prospective customers know that he has added a new item to the menu, Goulash Surprise, which will probably be available for only a very limited time.
For competitive reasons, Rottentomato refuses to disclose any of the dish’s ingredients or how it is prepared. However, he tells me that, unlike all of the other main course items he serves in his restaurant, Goulash Surprise contains no rodent entrails.
Concocting his new recipe was a great challenge for Rottentomato. He didn’t want to be limited by any traditional goulash recipes, hence the “surprise” in the dish’s name. In addition, he had to add some ingredients that he describes only as “exceptionally controversial spices” to make up for the loss of the luscious flavors found in rodent entrails.
Because of the unique “spices” he is using, Goulash Surprise is the priciest item on Shalampax’s Most Expensive Restaurant’s menu, but it costs only 25 percent more than the next most expensive item. And, as an incentive to try his new dish, Rottentomato will include a free glass of tap water with every order.
Rottentomato recommends that his customers come in soon to sample this delightful taste sensation as he doesn’t know how long it will be before The Shalampax Medical Clinic orders him to remove it from the menu.
As intriguing, not to mention uber-creative, as this new menu item sounds, methinks that Rottentomato is just trying to create artificial demand with the threat of removal from the menu by Medical Clinic decree. I can think of only one reason that Tuboflard would do such a thing and it has to do with a failure by Rottentomato to provide financial and/or culinary motivation.
I am eager for the intrepid reporters of Shalampax Speaks to visit Shalampax’s Most Expensive Restaurant and report on the spices that make this Goulash Surprise such a delicacy. Does Shalampax Speaks provide an extensive expense account for such investigative reporting? I hope so because we really can’t expect reporters to incur such great expenses out of their own pocket when it would be to the benefit of the entire readership.
I love spicy dishes! I’m on my way! Ooops! I just checked with my travel agent. It appears all flights to Shalampax are booked for the next six months.
@David: I’m not so sure that Rottentomato is just trying to create artificial demand. Rottentomato’s restaurant is the leading cause of illness in Shalampax. It’s a good week when none of his menu items are banned.
None of the reporters here are that intrepid. And big budget? Ha! Don’t make me laugh. We need to bring in our own office supplies.
@Birdinhand: I’m not surprised that your travel agent couldn’t find an open flight here. There isn’t enough space in Shalampax to land a helicopter, let alone a plane.
Oh, and one thing it doesn’t mention in the tourist brochures is that we are extremely paranoid about outsiders. The few foreigners who do manage to make it onto our shores are usually on the menu long before they get to sample our cuisine. When it comes to outsiders, we have no taboos against cannibalism.
This leaves me with one probing question – who is issuing the bans on Rottentomato’s food?
I can’t believe Tuboflard is hoisting herself off the couch to do something so superfluous – while leaving the triplets to forage on their own possibly consuming the entirety of her own snacks.
@David: Who said anything about Tuboflard getting off her couch? Haven’t you ever heard of laptop computers with WiFi Internet connections? And she doesn’t even need one of those sleek, small, light laptops either. She’s got a lap that could easily support a large desktop computer if she wanted to. She issues decrees from her couch based on reports of ailments reported by the Shalampax medical clinic.
And she usually lets the triplets, who are already crawling, forage among her snack droppings. Tuboflard is a sloppy eater.