Yes I'm Alive
Yes I'm alive, aftert the first week I got used to sending away the laundry people from my door. Not everyday is that interesting, plus it takes time to polish all these little tidbits into cohesive little posts. But it's monday so I'm catching up.
Mail question: What do you eat over there?
Basically I've been living at the company during the week. The cafeteria is just fine. And they even have a guy making specialplates for me ( tell our accountant not to worrry this costs about a dollar a day). I order a day ahead and they make a little plate. Outside work there isn't a heck of alot, there is a fruit cart where a guy chops up fruit with a machete...I passed.
The HR guy, god bless his heart, tried to take me to a Domino's pizza for breakfast the first morning here. They were'nt open at ten in the morning.
I eat out quite a bit. I've been sticking to things I know about. As for choosing a restauant I really don't know how to evaluate them, I usually go for the one with the most structural integrity. This is a good indication that they wash dishes, filter water....etc. Restaurants based in hotels are also a good bet.
Restaurants and menus come in two varieties
- Veg (nothing on the menu bleeds...about 3/4 of the places)
- Veg AND non-Veg ( we have some stuff with chicken in it)
And let me tell you after a few weeks of cheerful "Veg or non-Veg sir?" you'll want to scream "STEAK!!...I want a steak!"
Here are some typical things you will find:
- Dhosa - This is ~3 tablespoons of potatoes,peppers & onions...(think high quality hash browns). It's served in a piece of flat bread the size of your head. Ususally served with some tomato-soupy dipping sauce.
- Channa - this is indian for chick peas, again in a tomato-peperry sauce. Daal - this is indian for lentils (everyone here calls them 'pulses') sometime served as a fried cake.
- Panner - cheese, like cottage cheeze but more solid, in various sauces( butter, tomato...etc), usually coated in tumeric.
- 900 kinds of bread - Ranked in order of thickness
- Naan - puffy
- Roti (a.k.a. Chipati) - flatter, like pita only flatter than that
- Poori - think crackers (although crakers means fireworks and biscuits means crackers in brit-speak)
So I though I could shed the gut on the six month vegetarian diet, but you don't loose weight eating cottage cheese in a butter-cream sauce served over rice with bread.
And, as of this week I'm officially a vegetarian. (Yeah, it's asian bird flu ,remember)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4732098.stm
Food that's different here
To give you some idea what's considerd spicy here:
I saw a guy wandering among traffic selling chili peppers , my riskshaw driver bought a handful and started using them like chewing tobbacco.
The indian food you get in the states is very toned down. Assume everything has spices, tons of spices, and peppers, and somethingcalled capsicum...I think it's like black pepper.
There are other things that just don't translate well:
- Coffee: Coffee exists only as Nescafe with milk and sugar,this simply does'nt fly. I found a coffee shop downtown ("Barista") that has real coffee, but that required some negotiating as well.
"Just black coffee"
>>"Cappucino or Latte?"
"just coffee, Americano...but without the water"
And
"Do you have a six pack of beer?"(Guy pulls out two 40's of something with scimitars on the label)
>>"Strong!, you want 6?"
"No weak, six bottles, smaller, in a box....Kinigfisher?"(Starts trying to arange 6 40's in a box)
"Nevermind..."
And the one thing we export culturally to the world Mcdonald's. (Don't mock it! This is how we won the Cold War, McDonald's in red square was the end of it.)
(FYI Gaurav: The bigMac here is made with chicken, not lamb.)
And although I kind of knew that no McDonalds on earth was actually getting chicken and preparing it, (and that these sandwhiches were probably pre-fabricated in Ohio)...I'm still avoiding chicken.
So I got the Mc-Veg sandwhich...mmm...veg patty fried, Mcfamous day old mayo and peas. But the fries are exactly the same ;)
