So what's for lunch?

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January 31, 2007

Many of you have asked about how I’m doing with the food. I’ve decided to try to be a vegetarian while I’m over here. I’ve always been disturbed by the thought of how my meat made its way to my plate. My self-deluded coping mechanism has always been that it just comes from the grocery store. Faye Wilcox and her stories about how her grandmother would twist a chicken’s neck off so she could fry some up, make me a little queasy. And then there is my well known stance on veal. Now I love the taste of veal, but I’ve taken a semi-hypocritical stand about not eating it because of the way they pen up those poor calves and cut their hamstrings so they can fatten them up... Tom thinks this is ridiculous and often will order something with veal and then get me to have a bite without knowing what it is. Once I exclaim how good it is, he takes a sinful amount of pleasure in informing me that I’ve just eaten veal. Anyway… I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a vegetarian, so I’m trying it on for size over here.

Since it’s the most important meal of the day, I’ll start with breakfast. The hotel has 3 restaurants. Senses (Indian and Continental Fare), Oriental Bloom (no hints - the name says it all), and Geoffrey’s (an English Pub). Breakfast is served buffet style at Senses. I almost always have the same thing.

Everyday when I arrive, one of the staff opens the door for me and says, “Good morning, ma’am.” (I can’t get them to use my first name.) I sit down and order a cup of coffee first thing. (More on the coffee later.) Then I head to the buffet.

I have grilled tomatoes that are topped with varying things each day like cheese or pesto or spinach or herbs. They are small just a little bit bigger than cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes are always served with “hash browns,” but they are Indian style hash browns. While they are indeed grilled, shredded potatoes, the “hash browns” come with a spice that makes them pretty hot. Although on some days, they dumb it down and just season it with basil and parsley - I like these days better. Then I have some fresh fruit, typically watermelon, pineapple and sometime banana. Here’s an odd thing about the fruit. They also offer limes - whole limes. Hmmm… I don’t get that. And they have kiwi, which I would eat except that they are whole kiwis, which I again would eat except they don’t give you a damn knife and I’m not biting into that fuzzy skin! Next I get a slice of toast, which is ALWAYS topped with something… cheese, spinach, or one time it was topped with what I swear could’ve been Stove Top Stuffing. Stuffing topped toast goes against my Western sensibilities so I scraped it off and just ate the toast. Sometimes I have a little juice. There are 2 juice options: watermelon and orange. I tried the watermelon juice but it was just too weird to drink watermelon juice. The orange juice isn’t like what I’m accustomed to either. It’s thick and cloudy and an odd brownish orange color. It doesn’t suck, but it’s not Tropicana or Odwalla.

When I get back to my table, they have brought a small tea cup and saucer to my table. Empty! Once I’m situated, they return and pour me some coffee in this tiny little tea cup. It’s the best and worst part of my morning every morning. The best because I’m just damn glad to have some coffee; it’s an even bigger emotional comfort for me over here than it is in The States. The worst because I only get a damn tea cup full… 4 - 5 lousy sips… and brace yourself here Seattle… it’s Nescafe Instant! Nonetheless I welcome it as if it were the nectar of the Gods. They ALWAYS offer me milk with the coffee, and of course, I always decline. Yet when I ask for another cup - no automatic refills here - the same guy will offer me milk again. Hmmm… No short term memory? Or am I being a Seattle coffee snob?

I always order a poached egg while he’s pouring my coffee. Ordering eggs before you hit the buffet must be a faux pax. The egg always takes forever to arrive at my table and I’m typically ready to walk out the door, when it suddenly appears. Most days I wonder if they’ve lost my egg order, but it has shown up every day so far. One of the staff pointed out that I could not truly be a vegetarian if I ate eggs. I told him I was going to be a modified vegetarian. He said they call people like me EggAtarians. So be it.

They also offer cereal for breakfast, cornflakes actually, but they don’t keep the milk chilled and it is buffalo milk to boot. (It’s the holiness of the cow thing… no cow’s milk.) So I don’t have cereal. Of course there is always Indian food on the buffet. I tried it once, just to say I did, but I’m not too big on a spicy meal to kick off the day.

Now for lunch… I almost always eat lunch in the cafeteria with the Keane India management staff. The whole lunch process amuses me. I stand in line to buy my lunch tickets. Free lunch is one of the benefits for the Keane staff, but I have to pay a whopping 35 Rupees (or 81 cents). I pay the lunch ticket man, and he carefully tears out 2 tickets: one for 30 rupees, the other for 5 rupees. I have no idea why they don’t just have one ticket for 35 rupees, but that’s the deal. They also have a piece of carbon paper separating the pages of tickets - though they never write on the tickets; they just tear them out. Yes they actually use carbon paper here A LOT. It’s in the middle of every receipt you get. It is a continual reminder that I’m actually in a 3rd world country.

Once I have my tickets, I move about 2 steps to my left and give my tickets to the man behind the cafeteria line counter. He promptly tears them in half and throws them in the trash. Another thing I don’t get about India. You would think they would keep them and try to do some sort of balancing between tickets torn from the ticket pad and tickets turned in for food. Anyway… I then take a steel tray from the pile. It looks exactly like a tray you would expect to see in a prison! Each tray has one napkin on it. You get one napkin and only one. Next I grab a spoon from the spoon canister. Spoons only! No knives or forks. Then I move through the line and ladle my food onto my prison tray.

In the picture, moving clockwise from 12:00. Steamed rice. Sometimes it has herbs or peas in it. Next is Saunf. This is an Indian breath freshener for after the meal. It consists of little chips of sugar and anise seeds. You’re supposed to chew it. Not terrible, but I prefer a stick of gum. Next is an Indian dessert called gulabjamin (sounds like glob + jomin the Bob Marley Jamaican pronunciation of jammin’ ). It is like a fried donut hole soaked in sickly sweet sugar syrup. It’s actually made from reducing milk and flour until it is a paste, which is then rolled into balls and fried in clarified butter. It’s pretty damn good, just too rich for more than a couple of bites. Next is Dal Makhani (doll + mach + knee). This consists of lentils in what they call a gravy, but what I call a sauce. The gravy is sometimes more spicy than others, but it’s made from a butter and crème base and I’m sure is fattening as hell. You spoon this stuff over your rice and eat it. It’s actually pretty good once you get over the way it looks. Next is Paneer, which they describe as cottage cheese in gravy. The white chunks are cheese, but it doesn’t taste like cottage cheese and has the consistency of tofu. (By the way, they don’t eat tofu here - kinda of a surprise to me.) Again, paneer is something you spoon over your rice and it’s pretty good all things considered. Next is a runny yogurt sauce. You use this to cool your mouth off, which really does work. It‘s tangy but cool. Last is an Indian bread they call Roti (row - tee). It is made from whole wheat and has no yeast, so it doesn’t rise. It is cooked in a hot iron skillet or griddle. The Indian’s use the Roti to pick up other food with their hands and eat it.

So that’s lunch. Damn near every day. Not too bad, but I do get sick to death of the monotony.

Sometimes after work, I go back to Senses for dinner and sometimes I don’t. When I go I usually have a bowl of vegetable soup, or a grilled cheese sandwich or a pasta dish. Grilled cheese sandwiches are one of my most favorite foods, and Tom fixes the greatest gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches on the planet. These are different. The bread is grilled, but the cheese is not melted. I think they grill the bread then assemble the sandwich. I have to specially request for them to melt my cheese. Then they add cucumber and tomato slices to the sandwich. I’ve gotten used to them, but I’m so looking forward to grilled cheese and soup from Tom when I get home.

Welcome to my culinary world! Can I buy you lunch?

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Photos

Senses Restaurant
Where I eat most of my meals at the hotel