India: Food!

The chaiwala makes us some masala chai on the street in Amritsar.

I've declined about saying too much about food because I wanted to save it for one monster food post. Basically, a rundown of some of the awesome food. It was doubly great because I paid the equivalent of about $2.50 for most of my (full) meals.

Breakfast
Paratha or puri with veggies or cheese is as close as you get to an Indian breakfast. (Apparently, breakfast isn't a huge thing there.) So I ate a lot of that. I also tried a cheese omelette at one point as well as a masala omelette. But my favorite breakfast was the Tibetan food in Dharamsala: ginger tea with honey, Tibetan bread and fruit pancakes (crepe-like).

Other Tibetan food
The other highlight of the Tibetan food in Dharamsala was momos (dumplings). I also had pishi, a Tibetan soup with dumplings, tomato and lemongrass.

If I could get this pita, hummus and
pretty cold Coke anywhere in American,
I'd be there in an instant.

Most out-of-place food
This would probably be the delicious hummus and pita bread I ate in Pushkar. Twice. Many of the hippies here come from Israel, and this place specialized in some Israeli options. The hummus and pita was EXCELLENT!!!

Pizza
Hey, it's me. Of course I ate pizza. I had a very unauthentic pizza in Jaipur, which had not-so-great sauce and some cheese on a squishy type of bread. I had Pizza Americana (corn, chicken, chile and cheese ... not sure why that's Americana) in Dharamsala. The most authentic pizza I ate was in Jaipur (same place with the excellent hummus). The most unique pizza was the barbecue paneer pizza I ate in Ajmer. (It was delicious!)

Parathas
I grew to love parathas. The lunch I ate at the Not Just Paranthas restaurant was amazing.

Masala chai
I don't drink tea. But masala chai is much more than tea. In fact, it's only about half tea. The other half is sugar and milk or cream and spices. And when it's authentic it's delicious! Plus, they know how to serve it, in little mini cups that are just the right size for me!

Nimbu soda sweet
This might be the biggest obsession I gained. Fresh nimbu (lemon/lime) juice with sugar and club soda. I've been keeping my fridge stocked with club soda and limes after I returned.

None of the Coke I drank in India was "brrrr."

Coke
Coke was often served in a glass bottle with a straw. Most of the straws were useless, but I used them for sanitary reasons. They ended up just giving me lots of carbonation and a little soda each time. And even when the Coke was "cold," it probably started out at 75 degrees, which is not the definition of "cold" Coke in the U.S. The one time I was given an actually cold Coke with a decent straw, I thought I had gone to heaven. Also, another cola variety (but still made/bottled/distributed by Coca-Cola) was Thums Up, which is cool if for nothing more than the name and logo. It didn't seem all that far off from the taste of Coke.

Thums Up, by Coca-Cola

Desserts
We were greeted at the airport with gulab jamun, balls of fried dough soaked in sugary syrup with cardamom inside. I tend to prefer my ice cream with chocolate, but I had some new flavors that I was surprised I liked: kelfa pista (saffron and pistachio) and fig and honey (from Baskin Robbins).

Living the high life
The most expensive meal I ate was Rs. 650 (about $16) in Amritsar. We want to a fancy restaurant and splurged on appetizers and all. I had a Mughali chicken dish and laccha paratha.

Chaat
One of my best meals was when we went to a restaurant and got a variety of chaat (street food/appetizers) prepared in the safety of a real kitchen instead of sitting under the hot sun on the street. We had: papri chat (a fried disk in curd with chutney and shredded potatoes), aloo tikki (potato patty with vegetables inside and mint and tamarind chutney), samosa chat (a samosa broken up and mixed with chickpea and dahli), Bombay bhel puri (puffed rice mixed with spices and other things) and Mumbaia pao bhaji (bread dipped in a mixture of veggies and sauce).

Karim's kebabs

Food tour

The chicken maharaja mac

During my second-to-last day in India, Adam and I went on a food tour of Delhi. Here's what we had. Breakfast: ajwain straw (eh) and honeybee cookie (OK) from sweet shop. First lunch: chicken seekh roll from Karil kebabs in Old Delhi (delicious!). Second lunch: McDonald's chicken maharaja mac. (Yes, it's McDonald's, but you can't get the maharaja mac or the experience of a McD's that doesn't serve beef burgers in the U.S.) First dinner: South Indian food including papad (potato chip) and paneer uthapam. Second dinner was at one of Adam's favorite places. Soondal (spicy chickpea appetizer), creamy mushroom curry, chicken kottu paratha (shredded paratha mixed with chicken, etc.), malabar paratha, egg appam (rice hopper topped with egg).

What else did I eat?

• veg pakora (fried vegetables. Delicious!)
• lassi (yogurt drink)
• thali (huge platter of a variety of curries)
• aloo mater (potato and peas)
• paneer tikka (paneer cheese grilled with spices -- one of my favorite meals!)
• yellow dal
• mushrooms stuffed with cheese and spinach and grilled in a tandoor (I forgot to write down the name)
• mushroom mutter (mushrooms and peas)
• chicken tikka rolls from a roadside restaurant
• and plenty of assorted naan, roti, rice, etc.

Amusing tidbits
Anytime one of our Americans went to a snack vendor and asked for chips, we were always offered the "American Cream and Onion" chips first. However, we were all interested in trying the Indian flavors, such as masala and tomato tango, instead. Also, we tried "Indian cheetos," called Kurkure, which are like Cheetos but spicy.

Note that the ketchup bottle is twice the
size of my drink glass.

Any time we were eating at a restaurant, the waiter brought ketchup because they assume Americans like ketchup on everything. At one point, I was given a HUGE bottle of ketchup to go with my small appetizer order. At another place, I ordered a pizza, and when the waiter brought it to me, he set it down and then moved the ketchup bottle from across the table and set it next to me. Just to make sure I knew it was there. You know, in case I wanted it for the pizza.