Indian Food at Jaunted
Over at the travel blog Jaunted, I'm doing a weekly post on Indian food. Here are the ones so far:
Any suggestions for next week and beyond?
Two New Yorkers spend six months 18 months!?! in Bangalore and other places in India.
Over at the travel blog Jaunted, I'm doing a weekly post on Indian food. Here are the ones so far:
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
9:43:00 AM
0
comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
5:26:00 PM
0
comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
1:42:00 PM
2
comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
10:27:00 AM
6
comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
4:33:00 PM
2
comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
4:25:00 PM
0
comments
The covered wagons, which are drawn by small, perky horses, are often painted with flowers and other designs -- I'll try to get some examples. Both the tansas tangas and the bullock carts are used for hauling cargo like pipes, vegetables, stones, etc. I'm not exactly sure why they're outlawed on Cubbon Road. It is a wide, divided road, so maybe cars want to be sure to be able to go fast. In the background you can see a couple autorickshaws speeding away.
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
11:06:00 AM
4
comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
10:18:00 AM
0
comments
Yesterday I managed to spend 12 rupees for no lunch at all. Was I the victim of fraud or some other scheme? More like confusion and misunderstanding. The site of the non-crime was the vegetarian restaurant at the end of the block. Surprisingly to me, the restaurant is divided into two sections, self-service and a section with waiters, menus, long waits, etc. I sat down at the waiter side, but I quickly got too impatient and thought I'd try my luck at self-serve. By looking at what everyone else was doing, it seemed easy enough -- go to the counter, tell the guy what you want, and then get a ticket. Hand ticket to guys behind counter, and get lunch. I wasn't sure exactly when you paid, so I just said "masala dosa" and got a ticket.
And then I made my big mistake. I handed the ticket to the guy in the first booth. He took it, and then he said "coffee or tea." I duly ordered "chai," since it sounded good at the time, and I had to say something.
I went to a table, sipping the chai I hadn't yet paid for, and waited for the dosa that was never going to arrive. The small boy busing the tables, who couldn't have been older than 10, asked me what I'd got, and I managed to get out masala dosa. But it never arrived. I think what happened is that the first guy looked at my ticket, and he assumed it was just one for coffee or tea (they cost the same).
With the boy's help, I tried to get another ticket from the counter guy. This time I paid him. He took my 12 rupees, but I don't think he understood that I'd never gotten my first dosa, just chai tea. After paying 5 rupees more for the chai, and standing around, and trying with the boy's help to explain the problems, I left in defeat. The boy, who clearly has great skills (and faith) in getting things done, even followed me out of the restaurant, pointing out that I should get my money back. I wasn't as enthusiastic as he was about saying masala dosa 20 more times, so instead I retreated to the apartment. Leftovers with a chaser of Nutella and "Dark Fantasy" cookies (they're Oreo knockoffs) go very well with defeat.But don't worry about me -- I'm going back to the place today to finally get a dosa.
Here's a picture of the kind of masala dosa I would have eaten for lunch if I'd been able to get one: [Via Urban Mixer/Flickr]
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
12:17:00 PM
2
comments
Still no monkeys for me, although Don has seen a couple. Going by Bangalore Dreamer's encounter with a couple in the Nandi Hills (40 miles north of the city), it's good to keep a good grip on anything tasty when they do appear.
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
12:47:00 PM
0
comments
These were going to be called Frequently Asked Questions, until we realized that they hadn't been asked yet. Anyway, we'll keep coming up with questions and answers when we think of it.
Why Are We Here? What are we doing?
From late January through July, Don will be consulting with the copyediting department of a British publisher, which has a branch in Bangalore. To join him and to write about a place undergoing so many changes, John quit his job as a travel editor but continued talking in the third person. He'll be writing about the place and doing freelance writing and editing (resume definitely available on request). For your entertainment, he'll also be trying to do some simple South Indian cooking -- with any luck, hilarity and a big mess will ensue.
Sick days from the water, food, weak stomach, fear of monkeys,
etc.?
As of 11 February: None yet!
Number of monkeys seen so far?
As of 11 February: Just one, and he was little. Bangalore turns out to not actually have that many. Heh. But we'll definitely find the ones that are here.
Where are you living?
The job came with an apartment. It's in what seems to be a central part of town, with the New Indian Express newspaper's office at one end of the street, and a Le Meridian and a golf course at the other. There are still lots of broken sidewalk and rundown storefronts in between.
How many rupees in a dollar?
We always estimate it at 40. So 500 rupees is $11 or so. You can use this Google search for an exact quote.
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
1:57:00 PM
0
comments
The other switches turn on lights, but there's always at least one switch that doesn't seem to do anything at all. Flipping the nonworking ones fills me with unease -- who knows what I just turned on or off?
Here, we've plugged in an emergency light that goes on when the power gets cut, which has happened at least twice so far. The building has its own generator, so outages aren't as disruptive as they could be.
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
12:28:00 PM
0
comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
6:12:00 PM
1 comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
10:11:00 AM
0
comments
So I've survived my first five-and-a-half-day work week here in India. Any new job creates a few disorienting days when you start out, but of course I've encountered a slew of cultural differences that have made this week all the more through-the-looking-glass. For one, regimentation is big. Time is regulated by a series of bells that announce the beginning of the day and its end, and when to go to lunch and when to come back. The 45-minute lunch break is a strictly observed affair -- everyone leaves and comes back at the same time. It's a little like high school. As a foreign guest I am free to organize my own time as I see fit, but that's something that most workers here would not expect to be able to do.
Another thing you notice immediately is that labor is cheap. While back home we have one very lovely woman who comes around after hours to clean the entire office as best she can, here there is a team of about six cleaners constantly on patrol with mops and brooms and dustcloths. At the lunch break, when the floor empties out, the cleaners swoop in for more in-depth cleaning, wiping down every monitor and keyboard. The office gleams as a result. There's also a couple of guys who come by with very sweet, very milky tea three times a day. The managers get their tea in china cups, while the workers in the cubicles are served in small plastic ones. There's a whole host of issues with this tea; it's almost impossible to refuse it and once you are served it, you are expected to drink it all. When I haven't managed to finish, the other managers have been sure to comment on this. So I drink it, and when I get back to the States I'll have a powerful caffeine and sugar addiction to kick.
Then there's the guy who comes around to take your order for lunch. You tell him what you want and he orders it from a local place and brings it back at lunchtime. He already knows I like palak paneer. Now this I can see myself missing when I get back to New York . . .
Posted by
Unknown
at
5:13:00 PM
0
comments
We've been In Bangalore just about a week now. One of the advantages of the 10-1/2 hour time shift forward is that it's been very easy to get up early. Of course, we might have had to get up early anyway, given all the birds that start calling around 5:30. The crows and the chickens are loudest and easiest to pick out -- I have no idea yet what noise the other common birds here make yet, but together they make a lot of it. As far as appearance, the little green parakeets get bonus points for cuteness, but it's the kites, constantly circling and looking for something to eat, that are really worth staring at. There are also pigeons here, but a whole lot less than in New York, probably because of the kites and similar birds. I'd love to take some of them back with me and see them go to town.
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
12:10:00 PM
0
comments
First of an occasional (and shallow) series; with all prices in rupees
On Jan. 30, my second day here, I bought the following:
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
3:36:00 PM
0
comments
Posted by
Tripp Hall
at
11:16:00 AM
0
comments