Night 33: Pinus Sylvestris, Deep Dish Pizza Combo
The Late Night Diner is a part of Rhodes Island's canteen. That goes without saying – to whom had anyone ever heard of a diner in the boiler room?
As the name implies, it opens around midnight. There are only a handful of customers at a time.
Operators off their night shift could take an order and bring back to their quarters. Night owls could sit dining-in while leeching off the Diner's wi-fi. The Doctor would come for instant noodles from time to time.
Drinks are in the cooler. Anyone burdened by their own thoughts could take one and chug it down, anytime.
Menu? No such thing exists. What the Chef prepares is what you get. It all depends on his mood of the day.
Welcome to the Rhodes Island Late Night Diner. In here, you might even meet a familiar face or two.
Solitary customers were only among a small number of those who came to the Diner. Most came in-between their shifts in groups of three or five. It needed no special occasion for small gatherings here on Rhodes Island. A successful medical operation, coming back in one piece from off-ship assignments, or survived another day under the torment of Oripathy – these were all worthy causes to gather in the Diner for a good meal. When the Diner was packed with small groups like these, the Chef would bring out gears to make pizza. Surprisingly he would drop his somewhat snobbish attitude towards food, and let the customers choose whatever they liked, from the type of base to the toppings, even the sides and drinks are completely left to the customers. He even allowed pineapples as a pizza topping regardless of the anger from his Siracusan friends.
Other than the traditional Sicilian margarita and the trending Siesta pineapple, the long-time favourite of the crowd would be the deep dish pizza – thick bread base, plenty of toppings, and on top of everything a lethal amount of cheese. It was the go-to choice for any operators who would like to indulge in high-carb, high-fat junk food. They would eat their heart's content, till they couldn't have another bite or were wheeled straight out of the Diner and into the Medical Department.
"Boss! Boss! A deep dish combo!" The customer who had been waiting in line for a long time rushed to the counter. "I want it baked all golden and shiny, the most luxury kind! Lots and lots of cheese too! The kind that could pull a six feet cheese string!"
"Deep dish, lots of cheese, golden and shiny." The Chef wrote down the request on a piece of sticky note and pasted it on a cutting board nearby. It was filled with multi-coloured notes, so much so that looking from afar it resembled the colourful flags on the Kjerag holy mountain. "Any allergies I need to know?" He added.
"Nah. Hold on, didn't the Radiant Knight come over a while ago? Then I will have what she had, with the same sides and drink! Everything! One size larger, too!"
"Could you please not bring your weird sense of competition to the dinner gathering?" The customer's friend knocked her on her head. "Don't listen to her. We will get green pepper, sweet corn and onion, with bacon strips and salami for the pizza. Double sauce."
"Double sauce. Gotcha. Then what about the vanilla puff and large lemon cola that the Radiant Knight had..." The Chef started chewing on the butt of the pencil in his hand.
"Sratch that. We are getting Buffalo wings and cold beer." "No don't listen to her! I still want it! Ayy Greynuty don't drag me away! I want vanilla puffs — "
Wild Mane knight Iwona was dragged back to her table. The other two from Pinus Sylvestris were already waiting for them. These four Infected knights from Kazimierz had quite a few fans even on the Rhodes Island. Just as Iwona and Greynuty stood in line for orders, their table was surrounded by customers waiting for their autographs.
"S-O-N-A. Here you go. Thank you for your support for Pinus Sylvestris! Hey Ashley, welcome back." Flametail knight signed the photo for the last adoring fan, and bade him farewell with a smile. "There was a crowd here and they were taking group photos with us, and they were also asking about where you two went! Got the order sorted out?"
"Ask Iwona yourself." Ashlock sat down with some frustration. She complaint. "How many times does she have to order the same things as Miss Margaret?!"
"Ah...Ha, I was just..." Iwona scratched her head. "Eh, never mind. I never win arguments with you anyway. But mark my words, one day I'll beat the Radiant Knight!"
"Overconfidence." The Fartooth knight Justyna who had been silent suddenly spoke up. "Such noisome behaviour is unbefitting to your knightly status."
"I'm overconfident? Hey now, I'm always the earliest of us to rise in the morning and spent the longest time in the training room! Don't you double me Justyna. How about you and me have a go outside, now?!" Iwona slammed on the table with anger "Or rather you, Greynuty, want to have a go with me?!"
"Oh for the love of...why do yo have to drag me into this?" Greynuty rubbed her temples and sighed. "I didn't start it! Justyna did!"
"But if you are not with me, you are with her!" Iwona grabbed Greynuty in an embrace and started pulling on her ears. "I'll deal with you before Justyna!" She grinned.
"Owowow...O lady knight, spare me! You win, you win! Sona, great leader, save me!"
"Childish." Justyna muttered. She lowered her head and started cleaning her grass whistle, no longer interested in the squabble.
Just then the things that could stop the chaos at the table had arrived – a large plate of red glistening Buffalo wings and four tall mugs of craft beer. Flour mixed with sweet chilli powder, white pepper powder, garlic powder and other assortment of spices to make the powder mix. Fowlbeast wings were coated in it, then deep fried till gold in colour. Afterwards they were tossed in the sauce made of chilli, butter and honey. The orange red sauce gave off a sweet, spicy aroma, and when one bit down, the thin crust would audibly crack in-between their teeth. Mouth-scalding juices seeped out from beneath the crust, wrapped in the sweet-and-sour sauce and combined with the delicious taste of the meat. It was exhilarating. It was a great opening for their dinner coupled with a round of the ice old beer.
"So you just...charged in?" Holding her mug, Justyna looked at Sona with disbelief.
"Yeah." Sona munched on a piece of bone and looked back at her with the same expression. "Wouldn't you just want to kill the match with a beautiful finishing move? What do you think Ashley?"
"Makes sense to you, but I wouldn't do that myself." Ashlock took a large gulp from her mug and shook her head. "I'd char their armour black with my cannon fire. Isn't that right Iwona?"
"Bwuh? Ah...well...hic...sure thing, I stand by...hic...our leader no matter what she says." Iwona was on her fourth mug, and her cheeks had took on a hue of scarlet. She had gone beyond the point of tipsiness. "What did she say? Charge in and char their face black?"
"You're hopeless." Justyna frowned.
It was then the pizza arrived. True to its name, the deep dish pizza was made in a mould quite a bit taller than regular pizza. The golden bread crust wrapped around the filling in the middle like a gigantic crusty pie, and the cheese on the very top was melted completely. A few brown spots littered on the surface of the melted cheese, and it was roiling with steam underneath as if it had a life of its own.
"Whoa. Nice pizza!" Sona lifted a wedge from the plate, and the cheese from both inside the filling and on top was stretched into long strings. She stood up from her seat, and the cheese string extended with her raised arm, hanging between the wedge and the plate like a small waterfall in the air. "Look Ashley, there's so much cheese in it. Gonna be real tasty!." She exclaimed.
If it's regular pizza, the bread base would be soggy and limp at this point with the amount of sauce and toppings they had ordered. Yet the base of the deep dish pizza was thick, thick enough to keep its firmness with even double amount of the sauce. Sona send the wedge to her mouth with the stretched long cheese string. Bacon strip and salami were baked tender and smooth and full of grease. The pizza sauce, with its sweet-and-sour taste and the thick flavour of black pepper and basil, spread in her mouth and stimulated every taste buds on her tongue. A Siracusan would put the cook to the knife for putting pineapples on pizza on principle, yet for deep dish pizza invented and carried forward by the Columbians, there was only one solid rule: cheese, cheese, and more *Columbian swearing*-ing cheese!
"To Pinus Sylvestris!" Sona raised her mug and toasted. "Let's go up to the deck after we are done! We could see lots of stars up there!"
"Stars...hic...stars are everywhere." Slightly swaying, Iwona raised her mug too. A few cheese strings were still hanging by the corner of her mouth. "Why would – why would we go up to the deck? Sheesh...bottoms up great leader. You...hic...do you."
"Can we truly see the stars on the deck?" Justyna sipped on her beer, and thoughtfully turned her head toward the side window. "Sona, do you still remember the night sky of Kazimiers? What was it like?"
"I only remember gazing up at the it in my hometown when I was just a kid. Didn't remember much of anything else later on." Sona took a bite on the pizza wedge, then asked her a question. "Justyna, take a guess at the day I saw the most memorable night sky?"
"I don't think it was the day when our knightly order was founded." Ashlock interjected. "Neither was the day when you first arrived in the Grand Knight Territory."
"No idea." Justyna replied and shook her head.
"It was the night of the Great Kawalerielki Separation. On that night all the neon lights in the city ceased their glow." Sona smiled. "It was the first time in years that I saw the light of stars in a Kazimiers city."