PICKLED cucumbers for pregnant women at the Adventist Hospital on Stubbs Road, people paying for their food in the nude, champagne and candles for an outdoor marriage proposal on the Peak, and $9,000 of posh nosh for corporate types in Central . . . another day in the life of Hong Kong's premier restaurant delivery service, Food By Fone.
Callers give code numbers of the dishes they desire - number 252 brings up a $65 egg salad from Al's Diner; 3859 means the caller wants a litre of fresh papaya juice from Berrylicious; 2193 tells the operator that pancit beehoon seafood from Cinta in Wan Chai is the third choice.
Special requests - like sauce on the side, hold the onion - can be accommodated. 'Our operators are like waiters,' Food By Fone founder Richard Feldman says.
The Lan Kwai Fong cubby hole the company calls home stirs just before 11am, 365 days a year. The pace picks up over lunchtime, with higher and higher demand from offices in the area. On average, most deliveries are made to people's homes between 7.30pm and 9.30pm. Rainy Sunday nights are the busiest.
One driver became a firm favourite of a man who would order food, ask for his favourite driver to deliver it, and would receive the order naked. 'We were a little uncomfortable with it,' Mr Feldman says. 'But the driver didn't mind because the man tipped him $100 every time.' Sex with the salsa is not part of the service. 'Honestly, at night the drivers are so busy they have no time for hanky panky,' Mr Feldman says. 'They know what the next order is and where it has to go before they've delivered their current one.' Although it seems such an obvious idea, the Food By Fone concept was by no means a sure thing. A previous project, Restaurant Express, folded in the early 1990s, leaving more than the proverbial bad taste in restaurant owners' mouths. With so much money owing to them, restaurateurs were unlikely to cheer when Mr Feldman began knocking on doors looking for investors in 1992.
Food By Fone launched with a handful of restaurants - Supatra's, Hanagushi, Al's Diner, Tandoor and the old Graffiti among them - three bikes, and more ambition than money.
At first, the office was a table between the washer and dryer at Graffiti. After a year it moved to Wan Chai, where it shared space with a restaurant consultancy.
