First, An Apology:

Dear Hungry Desi,

You’ve been neglected for sometime, and I owe you an apology.  There’s the usual list of excuses.  Work got busy.  Really busy.  Surya owns my free time.  All of it.  We’ve been away visiting India.  Now we’re back but jet lagged.  I’ll try not to lean on those excuses anymore.  Here’s to paying more attention to you in the New Year!

Love,

Nithya

And second, India Return:

A flight to India must be the only flight where there are more vegetarian meals than non-vegetarian meals served to passengers.  For the leg of the journey ending directly in India, a non-vegetarian meal is the anomaly.  Eating out in India is a similar vegetarian paradise.  I guess that’s bound to be the case in a country where 40% of the population is vegetarian.  Some of the memorable meals that we ate included:

• Subway – At the chains in India, you can pick from interesting choices like a Paneer Tikka sub and Shammi Kebab sub.  The Paneer Tikka was flavorful though cold, and the Shammi Kebab was dry and tasteless.  It also seemed strange to get the usual Subway toppings (lettuce, cucumbers, pickles, etc.) on top of Paneer Tikka.
• Khan Chacha in Khan Market, Delhi – Once I got over the pungent meat odor that permeated through this place and sunk into a Paneer Tikka Kati Roll followed by the Aloo Roomali Roti.  There were a lot of other interesting stalls in Khan Market.  You could spend a day wandering around the market trying bites here and there and shopping in between.
• Sweets Corner in Sundar Nagar –  This is a childhood favorite of my husband’s, and it continues to be so.  The paneer tikka (do you notice a theme? I have a paneer tikka problem.) is some of the best as is their chaat and chole bhature.
• Taj Coromandel, Chennai – We ate the Golden Dragon and Anise a few times.  The service was standout.  The food was pretty good, but nothing amazing.
• Saravanaa Bhavan – Saravanaa Bhavan is usually the gold standard for South Indian food in Chennai, but the quality seemed to have really gone down.  We meant to go to Swathi in Pondy Bazaar, an SB restaurant, but ended up at the Mylapore location which was a few stars below the Pondy location and was teaming with mosquitos.

I’m hoping that before our next trip, Taco Bell India will have reached Delhi (currently only in Bangalore).

Happy New Year!

Nithya