Indian Takeaway

Predictably after the late night, the 6am alarm call was severely unwelcome. After a quick phone call it was agreed that we would be better off going tomorrow. We caught up on some sleep after the late night instead, and decided brunch would be best done by takeaway.

We went to a Chinese restaurant and grabbed some rice and a cauliflower dish. And I went to Kowshalya’s place to spend the afternoon. I ate my brunch and as soon as I finished Kowshalya brought out yesterday’s unfinished origami ball, and asked if I had any music with me. I did have some, so we listened to that for a while, and we finished the assembly of the ball.

Kowshalya went immediately back to the book and selected “daffodils” as our next challenge. The unit was a bit simpler and we were really into the rhythm of it, so 30 units went by in about 90 minutes as we listened to some Tamil songs. We began the assembly of the ball and finished it fairly fast too. Just as we were finishing off 12 units for another model, Mohan came home. We watched some TV which was a recreation of a famous wise man’s life. It was very dramatic with lots of reaction shots and spectacular costumes.

Once Sellappan got back we went to the Tibetan Mall, which was full of discount clothing stores and was just about to close, which advanced our dinner plans. I experimented with the familiar butter chicken with garlic naan, something I would often order at a takeaway at home. The naan was much thinner and even a little crispy, and the butter chicken tasted extremely buttery, even more so than at home. I dread to think how much butter is in it actually. I also tried some new gravy dishes, and apam which is a spiderweb-thin construction made of rice flour, cooked in a hot pan and swirled around to make a bowl shape. You can also get them with eggs in the bottom.

Dessert was found in an ice cream parlour making natural flavours,  mainly from fruit. I tried a fruit that I hadn’t even heard of before: the jackfruit. It was really nice in the ice cream, sort of like mango and peach but a little citrus too. The flesh of the fruit is orange, but the outside is green and spiny a bit like a pineapple, and I’ve seen ones being sold at the roadside the size of footballs.

The last food item on the menu was sweet paan. I’d only heard paan in the book The White Tiger, and it was described as something that you chew and spit out. This sweet paan was actually a leaf or two which wrapped something with an incredibly powerful perfume and mint flavour, and there was no way I could have it all at once. I took a small bite and it was so overpowering it came straight back out, much to the amusement of every one else!

At least we got to sleep at around midnight, ready for the second go at the gardens!