Mumbai - Day 2 (December 17, 2006)

Before I left the US for India, I had tried to schedule time in advance to meet my friends. But that didn't work out. Having grown-up in India I should have known better, but I didn't. The only person with whom I was able to schedule time in advance was with my Dad and my uncle.

Ever since his divorce, my dad has been gorging himself with food and has started to collect (fairly hideous) Chinese vases. Oh well, our family is completely dysfunctional and eccentric so no worries! In any case, he kept on looking at me askance every time I took a picture of what we were eating! I love eating at my Dad's house because he has a fantastic cook. The cook is from Goa and she cooks fantastic food. Really thin prawn curries, masalla pomfrets, and fried prawns. The food is absolutely divine. I was really looking forward to soaking my rice with curry, putting some kachumbar (sliced onions, tomatoes, and coriander) on top and squeezing lime juice on the top top.

Fried prawns and kachumbar

White prawn curry and rice

Vases

And more vases...

After lunch, we chatted for a bit and I shared my MBA plans and career goals with my dad in greater detail. He was very supportive of them, but my uncle was skeptical of my return. He pointed to the complacency, corruption, and the dysfunction of India and said that I wouldn't be able to adapt back to life in India. He's got a point to a certain extent. I'm considered impatient by US standards, which signals a very high level of impatience and that would be a fairly accurate assessment. But I really want to go back and try to work over there, and maybe, just maybe try to change things.

For far too long, we (as a country) have taken things as they are handed to us. We criticise a lot, but we don't try to change things. That is changing slowly, people are protesting miscarriages of justice, and patently unfair happenings, but we have a long distance to travel. I know it will be frustrating, but it's something I have to try to do. I'm getting bored out of my mind in my current location.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk by the Cusruw Baug agiary (Fire Temple). Fire Temples are the places where Zoroastrians worship. My family is Parsi i.e. a very small (about 100,000) strong community of Persian Zoroastrians who fled to India a long time ago.

Parsi's are very eccentric. In fact, that's our defining characteristic together with our love for food and drink (eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die out as someone said).

Picture of Cusrow Baug Aigiary

At night I went with my mom to a Parsi wedding. I was a little irritated to answer all those questions as to why I'm still single, but *sigh* it's one of those things that family/friends are pretty nosy about. And one Aunt tried her best to "introduce" me to all the "available" girls out there. I avoided her (the aunt) like the plague for the entire evening.


People attend Parsi weddings primarily for the food. The food is served on banana leaves and it's one of the few places where you can have a "Raspberry" drink.

Patra ni Macchi (Fish in leaves)

After the wedding, I went out to Geoffrey's (a pub) and chatted some more with friends.

Mumbai - Day 1 (December 16, 2006) -- Evening & Night

On my way back from D's office I called most of my friends and made tentative plans to meet each other. Most of the responses seemed to be "You're in town?? For how long?"

I had planned dinner with my mom that night, and at about 9:00pm (We eat late in India) we set off for Paradise restaurant on Colaba Causeway. En route, we stopped at Kailash Parbhat where I picked up mithai (Indian sweets).

Mithai

Paradise is one of my favorite restaurants in town. It's a small, quiet place run by an elderly Parsi couple and it has very simple food. My childhood favorites were the Chicken Steak and the Paradise Fried Chicken which was served with Pumpkin sauce. And the walls are adorned by Adam & Eve drawings by Mario Miranda, a famous Indian cartoonist.

Paradise had upgraded their decor and had finally installed air-conditioning, but the food was excellent. The waiters were still the same two gentleman and they recognised me and asked me if I wanted my usual combination of the steak and fried chicken. It was nice to see them after so long, and I left them with a large tip.

Adam & Eve by Mario Miranda

My awesome mom!

Later at night I was supposed to meet my friends at Mumbai's new lounge -- Shiro. Shiro is located in the old Bombay Dying mills compound, and I realized that it had been a while since I visited last when I was asked for a Rs 1500 (US$ ~35) cover charge. I coughed up the dues and entered. Shiro was huge, and I really appreciated that I could have a conversation with friends. Most nightspots in Mumbai are clubs which play loud music, but Shiro was different.

Once in I met quite a few friends and sipped on a glass of wine. I bumped into a guy I hadn't seen for 6 years and we exchange brief histories and e-mail ID. Turns out that he finished an MBA in the US and was working in the US, before returning to India earlier this year. That's pretty much the route I want to follow. Working in India --despite the many frustrations and low pay-- is so much more appealing to me now. I'll get to influence processes and actually contribute something. So that's my plan now, hope to get admitted into an MBA program, work in the US or EU and then return to India.

Anyway, I was talking with my friend and she introduced me to one of her girlfriends (S). S was very opinionated (why aren't more women opinionated?), intelligent, and kind and while we were talking I could feel the butterflies rising in my stomach. I haven't had this feeling for a long while (I hadn't been on a single date in 2006 until my India trip) and it felt very good.

Then S and her friends left and I caught-up with my other friends. I reached home at about 3:00 in the morning and I went for a walk behind my house by Apollo Bundar, the Gateway of India, and the Taj Mahal hotel.

The Taj Mahal hotel was built by J. N. Tata of the Tata family (India's premier industrial group) after Mr. Tata wasn't allowed into the then-famous Majestic Hotel. Indeed, the sign outside the hotel read "Indians and Dogs not allowed." So Mr. Tata decided to build a hotel that was bigger and better than the Majestic hotel.

The Gateway of India was built in 1924 to commemorate the visit of King George V. The last British troops leaving India left thru the Gateway of India as well.

The Gateway of India late at nightThe Taj Mahal Hotel

Mexico - Part 2

I haven't posted the remaining pictures from my time in Mexico, so here goes.

Juarez, Mexico

One weekend I decided to take a bus and go to Chihuahua, Mexico. In Chihuahua, I went to the
Museo de la Revolucion Mexicana - (Museum of the Mexican Revolution), Museo Casa Benito Juarez (Mexico's first President), and a few other places. And yes, the canine below was in a park in Chihuahua.
My hostel in Chihuahua (Casa Chihuahua). This was run by a fantastically sweet couple, and is by far the best hostel that I've stayed at.

Colorful boots in the marketCondiments at a roadside Tacaria in Juarez, Mexico

I had Mole style food for the first time on my last night in Mexico.

I loved my time in Mexico -- the people were very warm and friendly, the girls exquisitely beautiful, and the food was divine -- and I can't wait to go back.

Mexico

I'm in Juarez, Mexico. The food is nice and spicy, the temperature is warm, the people friendly, and I find the Mexican accent very, very attractive! BTW, I never really liked the "Mexican" food that I had eaten in the US, and now I learn that Burittos and hard-shelled tacos are a US invention!

Juarez

These empanadas were deliciously stuffed with ham, cheese, and cornREAL flowers at my table

This is not just any gnocchi; it's prawn gnocchi with salsa!
Downtown JuarezSunset in JuarezA restaurant themed after Frida Kahlo

Frida

D'Hoog

On my last night in Mechelen, I completed another of my life goals -- to visit a Michilen starred restaurant. The food surpassed all expectations; it was absolutely exquisite and I was VERY happy.

Anyone for chocolates?

It appears that going into a chocolate store and picking out a few freshly made pieces of chocolate to take home or to eat while strolling down the cobblestoned streets is a perfectly natural thing to do here in Belgium.

So I ventured into a chocolate shop and kept on adding different types of chocolates into my bag. My favorites were the champagne and cointreau truffles...The marzipan was good too.

Would you guys like some chocolate? I can mail it to you when I get back to the US. I plan on mailing some to my parents in India ( I don't know how well it will travel), so just ask if ya want some!

I've always loved fruit tarts and I always will love fruit tarts. This fruit tart was slightly different because it had a slice of peach in it. But it was yummy!

Sabor Latino or Ecuadorian (I hope that's right) food in Minneapolis.



If there's one thing that I like almost as much as snuggling up in bed on a rainy night and reading myself silly, it's trying out new food and cuisines. I was driving about in Minneapolis when I saw what promised to be quite the treat; it was a storefront that proclaimed "Sabor Latino" and a sign helpfully pointed out "Ecuadorian Food." Ecuadorian food! Hmmm, I've never tried that before. As a matter of fact, I had NO idea about what to even expect from Ecuadorian food. So I pulled into the fenced parking lot and made my way into said establishment.

I have the bad habit of entering restaurants where it's painfully apparent that I'm not "one of them." You know the type where everyone stops eating/talking/yelling on the phone in an alien language and looks at you. But I've entered enough strange places to not care about it. So the waitress asks me if it's just me, and I say yes, and she then escorts me to a table for 6.

I open the menu and a lot of the items seem to be seafood; I just love seafood so I was very, very happy! I also noticed that the menu was predominantly in Spanish with just a couple of words in English. This made it all the more exciting.

I ordered something that had the English words "fried Bass" and "spicy salsa" against it, along with a freshly squeezed raspberry juice.



The food was delicious, the spicy salsa was really spicy (just the way I like it), and the raspberry juice was sweet enough to give me a sugar high.

My only regret is that I don't know any Spanish, beyond "Muchos Gracias" and a few numbers.

Condensed milk goodness.

I just finished dipping my fingers into a tin of sickly sweet condensed milk...and...it was divine!!

Strange how much joy I get from the foods of my childhood. Now, if only I could find a way to get fresh Lychees, Alphonso mangoes (Apoos), and --I don't know the English word -- Targollas in Southern Indiana.

And a place serving the Parsi staples of Dhansak, Patra ni Machi (Fish in Banana leaves) and Saahs ni manchi would be nice too. Oh, for Jimmy Boy to open shop here.

I can't wait for my trip home in December, though everyone is going to take the mick out of me for taking pictures of everything I eat and see.