so i tell aisaadhi i’m gonna eat a good baiggandu and she asked me where from.

‘olive garden.’

‘ughh,’ she responds.

and this is a reaction i think i can sort of excuse from women like her because OG does give off a male vibe, but really, have any of these guys gone upstairs?

it’s an entirely new dimension, red tablecloths overlaid with polka-dotted fabric, clean tiles, horrendous hirigaa artwork, and NO clumps of smoking middle-aged men and their leery thoughts. no, in this parallel universe, it’s just couples and groups of non-smoking friends and the chatter from below wafts up, softened into a gentle, hypnotic drone.

and let me add that on this afternoon, right next to me and my lawyerly friend, let’s call him hasanfulhu, was this bunch of women, and one of them was black. or maybe african american.

OK, fast forward to when i met hasanfulhu. he comes in all dressed up like the lawyer he is, meaning pretty badly. it’s mostly his shoes, they look like they are homeschooled and have never met with others their kind.

‘man, there was this hot woman with my client today.’

‘yeah? who’s she?’

‘she’s actually my partner, well sort of, we started this practice together you see? and she…’

and i zone out, i can’t spare my last remaining brain cells to unravel this court case of a story.

’…right?’ he asks me.

‘right,’ i say. ‘let’s order. i want the thai hot rice.’

‘oh, of course you do, of course you do,’ hasanfulhu laughs. cos that’s all i get here. i know people think OG’s some sort of pizza powerhouse but these are likely people who’ve never eaten a good pie their entire lives.

no matter. what i like about OG is that it never takes long for the food to arrive. well, at least not the thai hot rice. now let me say a few things about this toothsome dish.

i was introduced to it by someone who worked at the country’s most humanistic of institutions. and i don’t think i’ve ever really got over it.

a few words of caution: you gotta be able to handle your heat if you’re to eat it. and don’t be allergic to seafood.

the rice is cooked (i suspect) in a light tomato base, then chili, bell pepper, fried onion, and fried calamari are added. overall, you’d get a kind of sweet and sour, seafood-y taste, and it is served with a side of paaparu. fresh crispy paaparu. and a rather forlorn slice of cucumber this time. the rice, meanwhile, is usually topped with a fried egg but i have mine without cos really, it doesn’t need that crap.

and it’s a meal that sets you back by 100 MVR, more expensive than a nasigoreng from a kaanivaa kada but i would insist a vastly better choice for that extra 15 rufiyaa.

as i walk home a full man after lunch, i get a text from aisaadhi.

‘how was it?’

i tell her.

‘huh,’ she responds. ‘what comes to me when you say OG are pizza boxes stacked in an oozing, oily tower on the back of bicycles.’

to each their own.