//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 - Curry Night 
// Story: Further Tales From Day Court 
// by Blade Star 
//------------------------------//

“This is the third time this has happened,” I commented wearily, rubbing my eyes in an effort to stay awake, despite the late hour. “Honestly, how many prescriptions was he writing? There’s enough here to leave an elephant stoned for a month!”

“Tell me about it,” my colleague replied. “The last time he got busted, they found what, a dozen or so bottles? The last count when they searched his place was nearly fifty.” I glanced over the paperwork and reports.

“Seriously, Wrought,” I said. “We need to create a pony version of the DEA or something. You and me can’t just deal with every major case that comes up on our own. You need infrastructure to deal with this sort of thing, not a pony and a human in one office, who both have other jobs to do besides.”

“The princess said it herself; there’s not going to be any more funding for stuff like this until there’s a greater need.” Sighing, I leaned back in my chair and looked out of the window. It was late evening already. I probably wouldn’t be home until after midnight.

Let me give you a little bit of background. Major crimes aren’t that common in Equestria. Murder, serious violence, drugs, and so on, are so rare that when a case does come up, it automatically gets kicked right up to the top of the food chain. That meant each case had to be tried by one of the princesses, or Shining at a push, and I had to be able to advise them. Effectively, I was doing the job of the CPS, CID and local law enforcement. It was a heavy workload when a major case did hit.  

Still, at least I wasn’t suffering alone. Sitting across from me was Wrought Steel, one of the best prosecutors in the CPS; equivalent I suppose to a district attorney, though I can’t be certain, since I never studied the American legal system all that much. He was a slate grey unicorn, just getting toward middle age, with a jet black mane and piercing blue eyes. His cutie mark was that of a balanced scale, reflecting his profession as a prosecutor. He’s certainly gifted at his job. When it comes to cross examination, he has no equal and has helped me rescue cases I thought hopeless.  

So, you can understand why I felt a little sorry for him, since he was now stuck helping me with our current case. It also hit a little close to home too.  

The case was against a local doctor at Ponyville General Hospital, one Dr. Horse M.D. Yes, I know, puns. Anyway, like his human counterpart, he was a very skilled doctor, if a little irritable and rude to his patients. He usually got the job done. He’d helped my wife a few years ago after her mini stroke, or at least, we thought it was a mini stroke, turned out there was just some debris floating inside her eye which dissolved. The whole NHS had been stumped by that, he’d figured it out in about twenty minutes.  

Anyway, also like his human counterpart, he had a bit of a drug problem, although his self-prescribed poison was ketamine as opposed to vicodin. He’d been a functioning addict for years. And let’s be honest, with some of the nonsense that comes through Ponyville General’s doors, I’m surprised that Nurse Redheart isn’t as bad. But every now and again he over medicates as it were, prescribing himself enough to be noticed by oversight. This time, he’d managed to land himself in hot water due to treating Mareclellan in his clinic and mocking the supposed captain of the Royal Guard. Mareclellan had begun nosing around and soon found enough to start an investigation.  

And so, here were Wrought Steel and I, pouring over the evidence reports in preparation for the legal case next week. I didn’t mind bringing the case before Celestia; Horse really had gone too far this time, having so much ketamine in his stash. But instead of just doing him for that, Mareclellan was going for a trafficking charge. Horse is many things, but he doesn’t know to share his drugs. Long story short, this case would drag out for an age, making my life deeply unpleasant for the foreseeable future; long hours, working late, and not seeing Margaret as often as I wanted.  

As I turned to the next set of evidence reports and statements, my stomach let out an audible rumble. Usually, I was home by now and having dinner with the memsahib. As it stood, I hadn’t had anything to eat apart from biscuits and the odd sandwich since lunch. I now felt noticeably hungry.   

“Sorry,” I said, as the embarrassing noise stopped. Wrought chuckled.  

“Heh, no worries, Roger,” he replied. “Although, it is getting pretty late. What is it now, eight thirty? How about we go get some dinner in the city and take a break from all this horseapples.”

Another good thing about working for Celestia. As long as you do your job and clock in and out on time, she doesn’t mind too much if you take the odd break. I’m a government minister after all. I’m not exactly tied to the nine to five with a thirty minute break at lunch.  

“Sure, sounds like a plan,” I said, setting aside the files, before gathering them up and locking them in my desk for safe keeping.  

“So, any place you want to try?” Wrought asked as I got to my feet and tucked my chair in.

“Dealer’s choice,” I replied with a shrug.  

To be honest though, our choices would probably be a little limited. Canterlot has a reputation for fine dining, and most of its restaurants aren’t the kind of places you could just rock up at and have a meal. Reservations on some places went back months, or even years. Only the lower end restaurants permitted the idea of ad-hoc dining. Although, come to think of it, I could really go for a chip butty in a greasy spoon right about now.

Wrought Steel though, had a better idea.  

“Well, there’s this new place I came across the other week,” he said carefully as he threw his jacket on over his shirt (ponies in Canterlot typically wear clothes as a rule, unlike in other towns). “It’s not exactly high end, but the food was nice enough. It’s called the Tasty Treat.”

“Oh? What’s the menu like there?” I asked. Canterlot cuisine, while expensive as all hell, had an unfortunate tendency to be rather bland and boring, and that’s coming from someone who grew up on British cuisine, which is hardly famed for its variety.  

“Curries mostly,” Wrought replied. “I had lunch there a couple weeks or so ago and they did a really nice vegetable korma.”

Wuss, I thought to myself. Then again, as I said, ponies up here don’t exactly push the boat out when it comes to food. Still, a curry house sounded like a nice change of pace. I haven’t had a good Indian for ages; not since I wound up in Equestria. I could really go for something spicy like a vindaloo, with a pint of lager, some pilau rice and a sweet peshwari naan bread, with maybe a couple poppadoms and chutneys.  

“Now that sounds like a plan,” I replied. “Lead the way then, Wrought.”





Leaving the castle, passing Duck and Cover, two of the sentries on our way out, we headed down in to the city proper. It’s actually quite the descent down the hill. Canterlot is build sort of like an old Norman fort, if you stuck on a mountainside. The city is on a level below the castle, with only a few points of access to the castle itself, making it easier to defend against a ground assault. Now if only our enemies didn’t fly or have access to airships.  

Anyway, heading down the hill, we wound our way through the main thoroughfare, passing all sorts of shops, now closed for the night, including Rarity’s Canterlot branch. Margaret had gone there with friends a few weeks back to get some new threads, since Rarity is her sort of personal designer. She and I can’t exactly buy off the peg in Equestria. My own tailor was also up here, down one of the narrow side streets. Old Elusive has stood me in good stead with fine suits these past couple of years.  

While the city was quiet this late in the evening, plenty of ponies were still out and about. There were a good few bars and clubs open, including that new place Vinyl Scratch has been playing at for a couple weeks. How do I know you ask, because I could hear her practising in her house a good half mile away.  

As we continued on our way though, the bustle of the city fell away and we wound our way through what you might call the restaurant district of the city. The many restaurants were still open, but full to the brim. Each one, which all looked eerily similar to one another, had a small three horseshoe sigh displayed prominently out front. This was Equestria’s answer to the Michelin stars. Without those three horseshoes, life in this city was very difficult for a restaurateur. Problem was, it was all handled by one pony; Zesty Gourmand. Despite looking like some unsettling pony-alien hybrid, her authority on fine dining is absolute. The upshot is, you end up with cookie cutter restaurants that are all the same.  

“It’s just up this way, Roger,” Wrought said to me as we continued on. “It’s a bit out of the way, but still quite nice. Although I should warn you that it doesn’t have a three horseshoe rating.” Thank Celestia for that. At least now I knew the portions would be more than a mouthful.  

“Never hurts to try something new, Wrought,” I replied. “And I don’t care what that Gourmand mare says, every place she’s recommended has always been terrible to me; bland and tasteless; antiseptic, and that’s just the atmosphere.”

“Come on, Roger,” Wrought replied. “She’s a well-respected food critic. I’m pretty sure she knows what she’s talking about.”  

Luckily, before we could start bickering, the Tasty Treat came into view. I smelt it before I saw it actually, picking up the aromatic scent of curry on the air. Memories of drunken Friday nights with friends came to mind. The building itself was fairly unremarkable, tucked away in a small corner on its own. Not exactly easy to come across unless you knew where you were going. Still, the lights were on and the sign said open, so we went inside.  

The interior was in stark contrast to the bland, hospital-like designs of other restaurants in the the city. It was a little dark perhaps, but the decorating was beautiful, with splashes of colour and beautiful designs all over the place. It felt like a unique place to be in, not just another cookie cutter copy and paste. The smell of curry was even stronger in here too, and the place was warmed by the heat of the kitchen.  

We stood in the entrance way for a moment. The place seemed almost entirely empty. If it hadn’t been for the sign out front, I might have thought place had closed for the night, and we had accidentally committed a faux pas by wandering in. After a few moments though, I heard a couple of voices in the kitchen, and shortly thereafter, a young unicorn mare stepped out.  

She had an orange coat with a deep purple mane and tail that was done in a style reminiscent of Pinkie Pie. A gold coloured headband held her mane out of her eyes, and a gold ring earring hung from each ear. As was often the case in Canterlot, she was dressed, wearing a light cream coloured blouse with a red bandana around her neck. For a moment she seemed surprised by our presence, before recovering herself.  

“Good evening,” she said in a somewhat marked Indian accent. “And welcome to the Tasty Treat. My name is Saffron Masala. Allow me to see you to your table.”

Saffron led the two us to a pleasant enough booth towards the rear of the restaurant, away from the draught of the front door. She provided each of us with a menu and ran us through the specials on offer. As far as waitresses go, she was polite, professional, and friendly; everything you’d expect from a server. Having chatted on the way over, we both had a rough idea of what we wanted, and the young mare was able to help us select something suitable for our dinner. After taking our order, she retreated to the kitchen and passed our orders through to the cook.  

“Well, this is a nice little place, isn’t it, Wrought,” I commented as we both settled in to wait for our meals. “I’ll have to bring Margaret up here sometime.”  

“Really?” Wrought asked, with some surprise clear in his voice. “You’re not going to take her somewhere with a three horseshoe rating?” I sighed to myself.  

“Okay, first of all, rude,” I said, gesturing in the direction Saffron had gone. “Secondly, I wouldn’t take her to one of those places if you paid me. I’m not paying three hundred bits in advance to get barely fifty calories of bland mush. Besides, we’ve always loved Indian food.”

“Indian?” Wrought asked, the word sounding foreign coming from him.  

We were in Equestria after all, there was no such place as India. I later learned that Saffron and her father were both immigrants from Bomhay. Since it was a safer topic than that stupid three horseshoe malarkey, I decided to tell him a little bit about what had once been the jewel in the crown of the British Empire.  

I actually had something of a connection to the country you see. I did one of those ancestry things several years ago back on Earth. I knew that my family was ancestrally Irish and could trace loyalist routes back to the time of the Easter Rising and the original UVF, with a couple of older relatives being members of the Orange Order and having been present at the Siege of Londonderry. But outside of Ireland, I had family who had gone further abroad.  

In the aftermath of the Irish rebellion in the 1790’s, when plenty of United Irishmen had buggered off to the United States, a few of my family also left to seek out greener pastures. One of them, Albert Rowain, had decided to go into soldiering and had joined the army of the famed East India Company in the 1820’s, which at that point in history, ruled over a vast chunk of India on behalf of Britain.  

Travelling to the subcontinent by merchant ship, he was posted initially to Calcutta, but as he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a lieutenant and later a captain by his early forties, he was moved to Delhi. And it was here, in 1857, that he found himself when the Mutiny broke out. He survived that siege by the sepoys and held on with his men until relief arrived and the violent rebellion was put down. After the company was effectively dissolved and the British ruled directly, he found himself transferred to the newly created Indian army, serving alongside the British army in India. Ultimately, he would die there at the age of seventy nine, having had a long and illustrious career.  

Of course, you couldn’t exactly boast about it back home. British rule, and the Empire as a whole, was something we were supposed to be ashamed of. I never understood that to be honest. Sure there were dark moments, Ireland being one of them (I may be a loyalist, but I still agree that the British response to the 1916 rising was an overreaction, considering all they did was take over a post office) but as a whole I always saw it as a force for good. After all, that same empire stood up to Napoleon, the Kaiser, and even Hitler. And you only have to look at some of the former colonies to see the effects of imperial withdrawal. India is a prime example of independence being the most unkindest cut of all.  

But I ramble. I actually ended up doing that with Wrought Steel as we enjoyed our dinner. He was actually more curious than anything. We discussed the East India Company, the Mutiny, Partition, which created independent India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan, the Bangladeshi War of Independence, which saw East Pakistan become Bangladesh and released it from West Pakistani control, and the continuing dispute over Kashmir. It is an amazing history, regardless of one’s moral scruples. We even talked about a few famous figures, like Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton and his own adventures on the subcontinent, some of which you’d have thought a fiction if there were no historical records to prove that it happened.  

At the conclusion of the meal, which I must confess was one of the best I’d had in a good long while, Wrought Steel was not only better clued up on India, but had also come around to my way of thinking about the Tasty Treat. This place didn’t deserve to sit empty, it ought to be booked decades in advance with how good the food was. And yet without that stupid horseshoe nonsense, it was struggling to survive.  

As the two of us relaxed over a pint of lager, something I am eternally grateful for, since you can’t have a proper curry with a beer to go with it, we talked about how we might be able to help get this place on the map. All we really needed was a big endorsement, and while she might have pull in this city, I had no plans to go to Zesty Gourmand, for she would no doubt say the food didn’t meet her standards and only hasten the restaurant’s demise. There was one other pony that I knew though, who might be able to help. While his restaurant had three horseshoes, it was still a pretty decent place to eat, also being one of the few places in Canterlot where you could get a decent beef wellington.  





In the end, I did manage to make it home before midnight. I got in a eleven forty five and managed to get into bed without waking my wife up. Only Charlie was still up, patiently waiting for me. He might be a disguised changeling, and not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was properly loyal. I made a fuss of him as I walked into the kitchen, before heading upstairs for bed.  

I had a bit of free time the following morning, letting me spend breakfast at least with Margaret. I told her what I’d been up to the previous night, within reason of course, and told her about my dinner at the Tasty Treat. To my surprise, I found that she already knew of that place, having been one of the first customers. Remember when I said that she’d gone on a shopping trip to Canterlot a while back? Well apparently, she, her friend Milano and my daughter had gone there for lunch. It had been just as quiet as when I’d visited, and she seemed genuinely surprised that the place was still open. So I took the opportunity to explain my plan to put the place on the map.  

And speaking of maps, another map had taken an interest in the Tasty Treat, and was already making its own plans on how to rectify the friendship problem it had discovered. Unbeknownst to me, while I was off doing my own thing, Rarity and Pinkie Pie would also be playing their part to help the Tasty Treat thrive.  

Leaving the house the next morning, I set off to work as per usual. I still had some work to finish up, and while I did want to get my plan going, I couldn’t just go around forsaking my duties, now could I? Like it or not, Day court still went on, and Celestia needed my help in dealing with a rather tricky maritime case. That kept me tied up until lunch, when I put my plan into action.  

Leaving the castle, I headed into the city and once again into the restaurant district as it were. The place I was headed was one of the most famous, and occasionally infamous, restaurants in Canterlot. Reservations were booked over a year in advance, and the place was filled to capacity every night. Why you ask? Because the owner and head chef was amongst the most respected and talented in his field. He could also be a little...shouty at times, but that was by the by.  

I’d eaten here a few times, including a couple of important receptions and political events. Not every banquet is left up to the castle kitchens. In particular, this place catered to griffons and other meat eaters, which was decidedly unpalatable to most ponies.  

Arriving, I found the place open, but relatively quiet, as lunch was not yet upon us. The sign out front read Tartarus’ Kitchen. Any guesses on who I was going see? Well, let me give you one more hint. Here’s what I heard from the kitchen as I walked into the restaurant and said hello to the maître ‘D.

“Listen! Listen! Listen! Listen!” he bellowed, pointing at his unfortunate underlings. “Buck off! Buck off! Buck off! Buck off! Get out!”The chefs all quickly began to file out of the kitchen, lest they receive another verbal tirade.

The pony doing the shouting and swearing was a tan coated stallion with a blond mane, dressed in a white chef’s coat. His cutie mark was a fireball, perhaps suggesting his temper. He certainly looked furious enough, and that was ignoring the horn on his head that was sparking and spluttering furiously.

“Idiots!” he exclaimed in disgust, kicking at a rubbish bin. It was with the harbinger of things to come, that I was led up to the hot plate.

“Excuse me, chef,” the maître D’ said nervously as I hung back.  

“Oh buck off, JP, will you?” the chef said I annoyance. “I’m working service with a half a kitchen here.”

The kitchen was a little unusual. Split into two separate sections, but sharing the same hot plate. On one side, which was now vacant, the decor was all red in colour, while the other side, which still had some very nervous cooks left in it, was blue. Also, the remaining cooks all seemed to be mares, and the ones that had just left all stallions. The maître D’, undeterred by this latest outburst, pushed on.  

“Oui, chef,” he said hurriedly. “But Monsieur Owen is here from the castle to see you.” That got his attention.

Looking up from his work, at that point a rather nice mushroom risotto, he spotted me and seemed to relax a little.  

“Roger!” he said brightly, “Good to see you. What brings you here?” It was a stark contrast to the raving lunatic from a moment ago.  

“Sorry to both you, Chef Ramshay,” I said kindly. “I’m here about the Tasty Treat; that new place off Crown Street.” For a moment, he looked puzzled.  

“The what now?” he asked, now briefly distracted from his work.  

“It’s a new restaurant, opened up about three months ago. I had dinner there last night. Food’s brilliant, but the place is really struggling. Zesty Gourmand snubbed it and denied it three horseshoes.” Ramshay rolled his eyes.

“Ah yes, no horseshoes, no customers,” he said bitterly.  

“I was thinking though,” I replied with a knowing grin. “That if a certain influential chef visited the establishment and gave it a rousing endorsement, ponies might be inclined to change their minds, horseshoes or no.”

Ramshay thought for a few moments before eventually coming to a decision.  

“Alright,” he said with a nod. “I’ll help out and come take a look at the place. But it’ll have to wait a bit. I’ve still got to get through service with these bucking donkeys.”  

“Hey, I find that offensive!” an actual donkey called out from the blue kitchen. Ramshay rounded on her.

“Oh shut your mouth you stupid bitch, and cook your bucking order!”

With that, I left him to it. He’s not actually a jackass. He’s just really passionate about food, and has no time for professionals who can’t meet his standards. That and, to be fair, some of his staff do seem to push his sanity to the breaking point, as I found out as I was leaving. I heard him trot over to one of the stations in the still working blue kitchen, where by the smell of things, one of the cooks had overdone the scallops.  

“Hey, Sweet Tooth!” he snapped. “If you sauté scallops in a non-stick pan, they won’t stick. That’s why it’s called bucking non-stick!” The other cooks groaned as they set to work redoing all of their dishes to get the timing right. I just had to restrain myself from laughing.

“I don’t know what non-stick means in Mustangia, sweetheart, but buck me!”

I failed.





While I was busy visiting Tartarus’s Kitchen, elsewhere on Restaurant Row, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were busy with their friendship mission to the Tasty Treat. Having seen the place languishing in obscurity, the pair, like me, had planned to help it get more ponies through the door. However, their plan was to convince Zesty Gourmand, the old battleaxe herself, to give the place a three horseshoe rating.  

The problem though, was that each of them had differing views on how to do this. While Pinkie tried to tempt new customers in with the uniqueness of the restaurant (which only managed to net one tourist from Whinnyapolis), Rarity set to work completely revamping the place, bringing it into line with the acceptable decor and menu of Restaurant Row. While they managed to convince Gourmand to give the place a shot, when they both met up that evening for her visit, they clashed over their differing ideas. That resulted in Zesty storming out and pretty much blacklisting the restaurant.  

Luckily though, all was not lost. The pair eventually managed to reconcile and came to the conclusion I’d been spouting for months. A pony who looks like she’s the result of a SMILE experiment that went wrong should not dictate the culinary tastes of Canterlot. Nopony should. We should choose where we take our business based on our own opinions, not what we’re told by some bigwig.  

And so they organised a grand re-opening night for the restaurant. Coincidentally, this was the same night Chef Ramshay had agreed to drop by to try the place himself. It certainly helped boost the numbers when word got out that he would be attending the re-opening. I decided to throw my own hat in the ring too. An important government minister is always good publicity, never mind a direct advisor to the princesses. To add the icing on the cake, I convinced Margaret to try the place as well. I like to take her out to dinner every now and again, and while I have no qualms with the lovely bistro in Ponyville, it is nice to go out somewhere a little more upmarket from time to time.  

And so, the night of the grand re-opening arrived. The Tasty Treat was absolutely full to bursting by the time we arrived. Rarity’s PR campaign seemed to have worked wonders. Heading inside, with my wife on my arm, I was glad to see that the decor had been changed back to its original form, and not the cold and clinical look of many other places on Restaurant Row.  

A slightly nervous Saffron greeted us and showed us to our table, while her father busily worked to fill orders in the kitchen. Hopefully, once this place took off, they would be able to hire more staff. We decided to take it a little easier this evening, sharing a tika massala along with a korma. Margaret doesn’t exactly push the boat out when it comes to spiciness. We also got a couple sweet peshwari naan along with a few side dishes. Margaret greatly enjoyed everything, telling me about her previous experience here with Lizzie.  

“Seriously,” I said as we both ate. “I can’t believe you never told me about this place.”

“Well, you never asked,” she replied with a wink.  

My attention was also on one the tables nearby, where Ramshay, who’d arrived not long after us, was now waiting for his own dinner. I’d told Saffron about him when we arrived. While Zesty might not be willing to give the place a chance, he most certainly was. He was making notes and muttering to himself as he examined the restaurant.  

A few moments later, Saffron brought out his dish, a plate of tasty looking aloo gobi. He certainly looked impressed by the sight.

“Wow, wow, wow,” he said with no small amount of amazement. “That looks absolutely amazing.”

“Here’s your aloo gobi, chef,” Saffron said as she set the plate down in front of him. Ramshay quickly began to analyse.  

“Well, the presentation, first of all; that looks so damn appetising. And the aroma is just beautiful, the garlic, ginger and turmeric not quite overwhelming the potatoes and cauliflower. I certainly feel like I’ve gone to Bomhay. Now, let’s see how it tastes.”

Activating his magic, he picked up a fork and took a mouthful of the dish, with Saffron nervously waiting for his verdict. He didn’t take long.  

“It’s delicious!” he declared.  

“Thank you, chef,” Saffron said, relaxing a little as he continued to extol the dish’s virtues.  

“The temperature and the seasoning are perfect. That spice really opens up the senses; a nice hot, dry flash of flavour. And the potatoes and cauliflower are just cooked beautifully. That has to be one of the best dishes I’ve eaten outside of Bomhay, and certainly a damn sight better than some of the crap they serve on Restaurant Row.”

Suitably pleased with his review, Saffron hurried back to the kitchen to tell her father the news. I leaned over to speak to the chef myself.  

“See, told you it was good,” I said to him, catching his attention.  

“You were right,” he agreed, still tucking into his meal. “Finally, some good bucking food.”

With that, the dinner went smoothly, as did the reopening night. Customers filled the Tasty Treat to capacity, and the place made more money in one night than it had in the entire time since it first opened its doors. Horseshoes or not, ponies were talking about this place as somewhere to go for a good meal out.  

The only slight bump in the road, was when the xenomorph herself, Zesty Gourmand, dropped in to visit. Having twice snubbed the restaurant as not meeting her exacting standards, she was appalled to see the place doing well. Rarity initially tried to be diplomatic, making the fatal mistake of thinking that Zesty might respond to logical reasoning and rational thought.  

After Zesty described Rarity’s skills when it came to fashion as ‘adequate’, a fact we’ve all had to keep from Spike to prevent violent retribution involving flame breath, she insisted that the assembled crowd knew nothing about fine dining and only her opinion mattered. That kind of got ponies to think for a change, and they realised that every restaurant they’d eaten in for the last year or so had been the same repetitive, bland rubbish.

In the end, seeing her criticisms falling on deaf ears, Zesty stormed off, her credibility as a food critic thoroughly knackered. The re-opening night soon morphed, courtesy of Pinkie Pie, into more of a party and we all had a great evening.  





A couple of days later, I was sitting down to lunch with Celestia and Luna. While she may be my boss when court is in session, outside of that, Tia and I are quite good friends, and she enjoys having someone other than her sister to share meals with, particularly as Luna is somewhat nocturnal. At least, she has to stay up a good chunk of the night. It means she’s not exactly the most chipper of ponies at breakfast or lunch. Of late though, they do seem to have been getting on each others nerves, or at least more than usual, they are sisters after all.  

Anyway, the three of us were sitting down to lunch. We’d have some tea and probably finish up our current game of Mornington Crescent. The current game had been going on for nearly a fortnight now (for some strange reason, Discord started doing a dance he called ‘flossing’ when he realised the game had been going two weeks) and was looking to be one of the most exciting for some time.  

As a maid topped up my cup of tea, I took a glance in the local rag, turning to the reviews section. It wasn’t hard before I found rave reviews about the Tasty Treat, along with one scathing review of both the establishment and other reviewers by Zesty. It was kind of sad really; the mare couldn’t take the idea that ponies could like something she didn’t like.

Luckily, it had no effect on the restaurant’s success. The place has thrived since and become one of the most highly regarded restaurants in the city. It also acted as the catalyst for a more long term change. With Zesty’s departure from the world of fine dining, the three horseshoe rating lost its value somewhat, as restaurateurs and customers alike began to see the need for variety. Before too long, Restaurant Row was no longer a street of copy and paste restaurants, but a cavalcade of all sorts of cuisines, decors, styles and atmospheres. There was everything from traditional Prench restaurants, to Griffon steak houses, pegasi sushi bars, and even a traditional Trottingham pub.  

It was also nice as it encouraged ponies to get out there and try new things. Much to Celestia’s sorrow, ponies at times can be a touch xenophobic of other cultures. Once they’re pushed to try something new, they’ll usually embrace it though without problem, their famous tolerance coming to the fore.  

It’s like that Pixar movie put it. There are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defence of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. I like to think of this as my own spin on that wonderful Equestrian notion, that friendship is magic.