My Meals in Mumbai

Friday, June 23, 2006

I think many people are concerned about how I'm eating here. So I shall talk a little about my meals.

Last night, after more encounters with restaurants of the third kind, we decided: "No more delivery" and had dinner at a restaurant. The restaurant was called The Noodle Bar. I had spaghetti in tomato sauce. It was quite nice. The best pasta I had so far. Winnie had sizzling chilli garlic noodles. The noodles were served on a hot plate and the fragrance of fried garlic and onion reminded me of food back home. I must say last night was the best meal we had so far. The meal cost about S$7 which was ok, considering that the restaurant was quite decent and expensive looking by Indian standards.

The only bummer was the heavy rain after dinner. We were all drenched and freezing in the car. The traffic was so bad that we took 1 and a half hours to get home. The rain could be a relief for Mumbai though because I read in the newspapers that there were plans to cut water supplies if the rain did not come soon. The late monsoon has caused Mumbai's catchment areas to dry up really quickly. So now, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I don't want to have the water cut. On the other, I hate the kinds of rain they have here. It will be hard for us to go out and explore the city.

Well, back to food. Salt and oil here must be really cheap. Everything is so salty and oily. I had Hakka Fried Noodles for lunch yesterday. I was expecting to get something like mee goreng but I ended up with mamee type noodles with lots of salt. Try drinking sea water with mamee and you will know what I mean.

For the other days, I have been having western food: pasta, wraps, sandwiches. Still passable.

Today's lunch was the first meal of rice I had in days. It's really wierd that they only serve either vegetarian or chicken. Surely besides beef being taboo, there are other kinds of meat available here? I've been having chicken sandwich, chicken noodles, chicken cutlet, chicken anything...

Hopefully, when Brian brings us out tonight after work, we get to try out something else.