Over the last few years, I have been fighting a (losing) battle with restaurants across the board. Every time I order a drink — sparkling water or Coke Zero — I always specify: “Ice but no lemon.” And every single time the drink is brought to my table with a slice of lemon bopping around in it. When I remonstrate, the most common response is: “Oh, I’ll just remove the lemon.” When I ask that my drink be replaced, the wait staff looks incredulous; the unspoken criticism being that I am a bit of a madam to make such a fuss about a slice of lemon.
In case you are thinking along the same lines, allow me to explain why I don’t want a lemon slice contaminating my drink. And yes, I use the term ‘contamination’ advisedly. Most fruit and vegetables in India are cultivated with a liberal dose of pesticides. These pesticides survive on the rind and peel of vegetables. And when you put a slice of lemon — with the rind attached — into a drink, what you are doing is adding a dose of pesticide to your beverage. And no, even vigorous washing often doesn’t get rid of pesticides that are trapped in the waxes applied for preservation. (Also, hand on heart, how many of us expect the average restaurant to put in extra effort in cleaning the rind of fruit? I certainly don’t.)
So once a slice of lemon is in my drink, the damage is already done. Fishing it out with a fork is not a solution. Only replacing the drink will make any difference. But I still get queer looks from the wait staff and fellow guests when I make this request because apparently it proves that I am just a ‘difficult’ customer.
Well, maybe I am. But I know what I want in a restaurant and what I most decidedly don’t. And if the restaurant finds my choices ‘difficult’ I am happy to go elsewhere. But there are some things I will never do.
For starters (pun entirely unintended) I will never order a salad even if it is the healthy choice. The sad truth is that I have no confidence in any commercial kitchen’s ability to clean leaves adequately (and don’t even get me started on the raw vegetables). So while I am happy to make salad for myself at home, when I am eating out I stick to cooked food. (And this is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way — don’t ask.)
In main courses, I avoid any sauces that contain raw egg because — again! — I have trust issues. And when the meal is over, I am always the only one on the table (at an Indian restaurant) to decline the saunf and mishri mixture you are offered after dessert. Not because I want the saunf to be cooked (even I draw the line at that!) but because it is served from the same communal bowl that everyone has been diving into with their bare hands. And I can do without ending my meal with a dose of germs.
If that makes me a Difficult Madam, then I’m happy to live — pesticide-less and germ-free — with that label.
From HT Brunch, March 07, 2026
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