Nomilicious

We had planned to go wedding-shopping today. We need, after all, four different outfits for the weekend of festivities, and we needed to buy presents for the bride and groom. But after calling my uncle, we were told not to go shopping on Saturdays – there are so many Indian superstitions, I’ve started to lose track of them all – so we spent the evening at the Bangalore Club.

We got the Club about an hour before the restaurant began serving dinner, so my uncle showed us around. He showed us the tennis courts and swimming pool, and we made our way through the Food World.

On a side note, a packet of Maggi Noodles only costs around 10-15 rupees. But a small box of cake mix costs more than 275 rupees. I now understand why my grandmother saved half a packet of cake mix.

After wandering around the Club for a bit, we made it to the “snacks” area of the Club. For anyone who has never been to the Bangalore Club, it’s a pretty posh place. The “snack-and-chat” area is different from the “sit-down-for-dinner” restaurant, which is different from the “order-fancy-drinks” bar. And there are different dress codes for each. (I still remember when we took some family friends to the Club for dinner, a few years ago, and their son wore shorts to the club. The doorman would not let him inside the restaurant, and all the kids had to sit outside and eat in the snacks-area.)

Anyway, we made it to the snacks-area, and I ordered a soda. Around 7:45, we finally decided to eat some substantial food.

Hanging onto my glass bottle of Coca-Cola (made with real sugar – none of this High Fructose business, mind you) we eventually made it to the restaurant portion of the Club and ordered our food. The Hot and Sour 

Soup arrived first.

For the record, Indian-Chinese food is amazing. I think I could live off it. (And mangos and ice cream and Gobi Manchurian.)

The rest of the food – the noodles and biryani and curries and even the curd rice – was just as amazing. What made me really happy, though, was the warm bowl of water the waiter gave after clearing up our dishes.

I wish restaurants in the U.S. gave little bowls filled with warm water for hand-washing at the end of meals. Even though I use cutlery when we go out to eat, I still love the feeling of dipping my hand in the warm bowl of water, squeezing the slice of lime and watching the juice drip over my fingers.

After we’d finished our meal at the Bangalore Club, we made our way to a kulfi stand, near a gas station. I love that my uncle knows all the back restaurants – where to get the best absolutely-anything – and I love that he’s taking me to all these places. The stick of Kesar Pista Kulfi I ate was absolutely divine.

Move over, gelato, kulfi is here to stay.

And now I’m so full, I think I’m going to fall into a food coma at 9 o clock on a Saturday night.

-June 11th