Foodie’s (Bad) Day Out!

There are days that are bad. And there are days that are so bad and that they become funny. Like movies that are so bad that they become hilarious (Gunda, Sivaji, Jani Dushman, etc.)

So, what is it that made my yesterday bad? Sorry – Funny? Food! It was bad food all the way. [Those who know me know that I love eating! I love food!! And I am a self proclaimed foodie!!!]

Lets start with a bad morning where I had to reach office by 7:40AM or so. I had an 8AM call. Well, after a meaningless one hour drone of a call, Meesum and I decided that a light south Indian breakfast would be good. We go to Sai Sagar in Bandra, near Lilavati – yeah yeah!  one of those X-sagar restaurants (where X can be replaced by an S-word – Shiv, Shanti, Sai, Sukh, etc.) that are known to serve quick simple inexpensive food. Suddenly, I feel like changing it to cheap food with a lot of sweetness all around!

We were scrolling through the menu. We noticed something called Tomato Omlette. Hmm.. Nice! Just that this omlette had no eggs! My bad! should have expected that! Its an X-Sagar (they are all vegetarians). Anyway, the waiter explained that its a veg omlette. We go ahead and order it. On top of it, we order a plate of Idli. Simple, inexpensive order, right? Here is where the downfall begins. The veg “omlette” is nothing but besan ke chilay (besan is Gram Flour and chilay are like chapatis made of besan). Just that they had it fairly uncooked and it tasted pretty wretched – sloppy, tasteless. Now.. we decide to move on to Idlis.. one of the simplest south indian dishes to make. But this tasted more like freshly grounded rice cakes (ekdam bhusbhusa… and I have no other word to describe what bhusbhusa is). But what took the cake was – CHINI (Sugar) in Sambhar!  How often do you get that? Which god foresaken cook would put sugar in sambhar? It sounds more sinful than adding paneer to chicken.  And they proudly accept that they make sambhar sweet!

Well. the day was just beginning. We had lunch at McDonalds. Yeah. the same Ronald McDonald one!  Known the world over for their standard operating procedures, adherence to quality and high standards of hygiene. Here we were, ordering our regular stock of McChicken Burgers and Maharaja Macs. For a change, here, the bun itself was bhusbhusa! Stale. The chicken filling inside had small cartileges and was stale too! Bad Food part-II.

Part three was the golgappa (pani puri/puchka/ and other such synonyms) wala. I don’t think Mumbai pani puri walas know how to make good ones anyway. For one, they don’t understand the concept of khatta in chat-puchka. However, this one was worse. No salt either. Net net.. a bad golgappa experience.

Finale was Bombay blue at Bandra. well.. I have never had sweet corn soup where the cook has taken the sweet word to his heart. To an extent, its only sweet soup, rather than sweet corn soup! The only taste you get out of the soup is the sweetness. As Meesum said – if it were colder, it could have been passed off as a dessert. Butter chicken was sweet.. Biryani was sweet as well.

Well.. so sweet of them.. right? Arrgh! I am not a gujju.. I don’t appreciate sugar in my food. I am sure more than half the humanity does not! I do have a sweet tooth, but thats not for sweetness in things like Dal, Sambhar and Chicken.

Oblivious to all this, my bai (maid) decided to misplace the lock of my flat, causing a 3 hour problem for my landlord. Talk about icing on a cake!