There are a lot of restaurants in Ponyville. Most of them have outdoor seating, the staff are nice, the prices reasonable, and unfortunately they only serve vegetarian food. Well, with the exception of the Sea and Sky, which does serve fish; however, they’re on a cloud and inaccessible to you, and they also only serve fish raw. Not sushi raw, but instead in the ‘whole dead fish on a plate’ manner.
You’d asked Sassaflash about that once, and she said that fish wasn’t as good if it wasn’t crunchy.
You’re not sure if you should believe her.
* * *
Your stay in Equestria has forced some dietary changes. You’ve got no complaints about Sugarcube Corner—their treats are fantastic—but you know that you can’t just eat sugary snacks. That’d give you diabetes, and you aren’t sure if the ponies make insulin. Maybe they do; maybe that’s why they have pigs. You can’t think of another reason why they would.
So you go from restaurant to restaurant, hoping to find the salad that tastes good to your palate.
Today, you’re at Sweetgreens, sitting outside since it’s a nice day, and scanning through the menu. One item catches your eye—the spicy salad.
The description of the salad doesn’t provide any real clues. It’s hoof-tossed, and made with spicy ivy, spicy sumac, spicy oak, and spicy nettle. You’ve had nettle tea, which is actually decent, although no replacement for coffee. You’re pretty sure you’ve had stuffed ivy leaves before, and sumac in salad. You’re less sure about the oak, but vaguely remember as a kid gnawing on oak leaves.
Whatever the case, it’ll be an interesting change from the normal, boring salads, especially since ponies usually don’t go for salad dressing of any kind, so when the waiter comes by, you order it.
If nothing else, it doesn’t take very long to prepare salads, and before too long a bowl is set in front of you. No utensils; only unicorns are given those as a matter of course.
You pick up a leaf and nibble on it. It tastes just like a leaf, with a vague hint of lemon—you’re not sure where the ‘spicy’ part of the salad comes in.
Still, there are three other kinds of leaves, so you try another. That one does make your mouth tingle just a little bit. You wouldn’t say that it’s spicy, but maybe to ponies, that tingle is spicy. It’s hard to be sure.
Overall, you’d give this salad a five out of ten. Maybe six, if you’re feeling generous. It’s by no means the best one you’ve had in Equestria, but then it’s far from the worst. You pick up another leaf and put it in your mouth.
* * *
You’re about halfway done with your salad when things start to go wrong. That bit of tingling has spread—it’s on your hands, and even worse, it’s in your throat. You’ve had hot sauces that take a while to kick in, but this doesn’t feel quite the same. There’s a pressure behind the tingling, and you notice it’s getting more difficult to breathe.
What is this stuff? Now that you’ve noticed the effects, they seem to be getting more pronounced. You can feel some patches of skin on your face and arms that are burning, too, places where you’d touched yourself, where you’d unintentionally spread whatever it was in these plants onto your skin.
Just then, the waiter shows back up at your table. “Enjoying your meal, sir?”
You’ve always been taught to be polite to waitstaff, but: “No, and in fact I think I need to go to the hospital,” you croak out. “Please call an ambulance.”
He raises an eyebrow, and then turns and trots back to the kitchen, and as you’re sliding out of your chair you remember that they don’t have telephones in Equestria.