DESCRIPTIVE WRITING (edited version)

Experience of a fast food restaurant


‘Mmmmmm’, ‘Aaaaahhhh’, such an aroma in the air. Even a mile or so away. This is true a mile in radius around Al-Baik. It is situated at the corner of Tahlia street, one of the busiest in Jeddah with huge supermarkets, renowned clothing stores, and restaurants along its length. When you are walking up towards your craving extinguisher, your mouth starts watering with images of its tasty chicken and that garlic sauce… Yummmmm!

Its one place where I’ve never seen its doors closed, be it any time of the day. There is no way the doors can close, the line is too long! You have to push through other people trying to get in line first. The restaurant is roughly 30 by 30 feet. It is lit with fluorescent lights, no big advertisement or special deal posters hanging from its ceiling. The first thing you would notice is the crowd of course. All packed in one small space like bees in their bee hive. Just heads of people from all aspects of life: poor, wealthy, the common, all packed in that one restaurant (leaving all restaurants in the area, including KFC and even McDonalds to squat flies all day in their boredom of empty restaurant).

But the real experience goes like this: you just LOOSE It. It smell makes you take deep breaths and it is hard to focus. When you look at the counter, you see very fast speaking Sri Lankans taking orders at a pace of maybe 10 costumers per minute. If you look a little above their heads, you would find the menu. It is not a fancy one full with delicious, mouth-watering pictures of food, but just simply lists. Every Jedanian knows exactly what he wants to order, ‘one box of Al-Baik with extra buns and lots of garlic sauce’. You purchase the Al-Baik for the price of just SR.10 (equal to $2).

With the plastic bag in your hand, you can start picturing that crispy broasted chicken that you will be biting into as soon as you get to your car. And that soggy fries that are soft and oily, just perfect to enjoy with your meal, and that sesame seed bun that will be dipped into that creamy garlic sauce and munched in to… OoooLLLllaaalllLAaaahHHh!