India—’giving me curry’ all the way

A bird’s eye view of the kitchen and serving

We’re already two weeks into our overland jaunt across northern and central India and I’m still not tired of eating curry. In fact, with the exception of a couple of pieces of toast, one bowl of cereal and quite a bit of fruit, I’ve had curry at every meal since 24 January. And all I can say is Bring it on.

I like to think I make good curries—to be honest, I do a very good job—but the master curry makers are in India and we keep encountering them every day.

For starters we got street food—skewers of fish and chicken cooked while we waited and served up in a large stainless steel bowl. Delicious and spicy.

Skewers of fish and chicken being made in Delhi

The first dinner was in a restaurant in Old Delhi, not far from the Jama Mosque. This narrow eating establishment is part of the Rehmatullah Hotel, with a bit of seating both downstairs and upstairs. From our upstairs perch, we could watch the chefs ladling up bowls of curry, rice and dal, and adding plates of bread.

We could also see several rows of men squatting on their haunches on the footpath out the front of the restaurant. These fellows, who are beggars, take up this position daily outside many restaurants waiting for the day’s leftovers or to have a generous diner pay 40 cents or so for a meal to be served to them before the restaurant is closing up—a sensible option if leftovers look to be running low.

We enjoyed a simple meal of saffron rice, chicken curry and bread. A couple of us added some rupees to the payment so a couple of beggars could get their meals early. I desperately wanted to take a closer-up pic of these fellows, but it just didn’t seem right. Too intrusive.

Saffron rice and chicken curry

We had some truly wonder meals over the last two weeks. One that surprised a couple of fellow travellers was the idli with sauces for breakfast. We’ve had this South Indian breakfast dish before, so I knew exactly what it was—little pancake-y rounds made from de-husked black lentils and ground rice. We had three dishes on the side—coconut, chilli sauce and dal. These were the nicest idli I’ve ever had, so well worth recalling.

Idli with coconut sauce, chilli paste and dal—and a missing bite

We also had a delicious lunch at a rundown roadside cafe not far over the border into Rajasthan. Two dishes were Rajathani specialities and they were excellent. I was surprised to see that one of them included pasta, but then pasta is widely sold in the markets throughout India. They also served chai (spiced tea) is small pottery cups that are meant to be thrown away after use. Seems such a pity.

Roadside food—the two Rajasthani dishes are in the right foreground

Chai in pottery cup

And another favourite has been the thalis. A thali is sort of a sampling plate. There are lots of little bowls with a selection of dishes such as curry, rice, vegetables, curd or raita (yogurt), dal, bread, roti and a sweet. We’ve had a couple of sensational thalis, especially one at a restaurant in Jaipur called RasRaj. If you ever get the chance—go there! It was one of the two best meals we’ve had so far and I didn’t get a pic of the best one in Jaisalmer at a small rooftop restaurant called Sunset City Palace. That menu included a speciality dish of desert vegetables which apparently grow only in Rajasthan.

The sensational thali from RasRaj Restaurant in Jaipur

Oh, and do you know the expression to give someone curry? It’s a slang expression meaning to give someone a hard time either verbally or physically. For the next 10 weeks, it’s going to mean bring me my next meal! 🙂