Travel Hell and Indian Heaven

Date: May 31, 2012
Name: United Airlines
Address: Flight #90, aisle seat between Newark and Tel Aviv.

After successfully packing, donating, and recycling my belongings (thanks to everyone who helped!), and after holding a lovely going away gathering, one challenge remained: getting to the airport and surviving 3 connecting flights between Washington, DC and Tel Aviv, Israel.

The taxi driver carried my bags from my doorstep, American curb-side check-in didn't weigh my bags or charge me for the second one, and the airport helper wheeled me through security, including an x-ray of my cast. I even dozed off and had an awesome nap. But one hour before take-off, my first flight was cancelled. Back into the wheelchair to re-claim my bags and re-book my flight. I was re-routed on United, which elimiated one connection and got me in earlier than originally planned. The United agent weighed my bags (48 and 49 pounds, thank you very much), charged me ($70, ouch), and informed me there is only a middle seat and no hope for a vegetarian meal. Oh well.

Thanks to the airport helpers and other passengers, I made it on board (aisle seat, cast karma strikes again!) and fell asleep. I woke for dinner, but no veggie meal. Even the salad had fish in it! I'm already suffering, what's a little more? I went back to sleep, and woke later to find a vegetarian snack box on my tray. Two bites of quinoa, roll, and vegan cookie. Yum. Back to sleep.

I woke up with 2:45 hours to go and decided to watch "3 Idiots," which is Bollywood's highest grossing film. I'd heard about it through my internship at OEC, when we'd talked about putting these chairs into an exhibit about Indian Americans. As I watched, breakfast was served. As if my karma was feeling guilty, the vegetarian option turned out to be Indian food! Rice with curried vegetables and channa masala.

I was in Indian heaven. As I was the last passenger to de-plane, I had exactly enough time to finish watching the film. A lovely ending to a horrible travel experience. No pictures because my camera was in the overhead compartment and anyways, the steward had taken my crutches.

Hobbling to the Himalayas

Date: May 30, 2012
Name: Himilayan Heritage
Address: 2305 18th Street NW. Washington, D.C. 20009

In the interest of keeping things interesting, I broke my foot right before graduation and learned that my health insurance had expired much, much earlier than I thought (thanks, mom). As if life wasn't difficult enough, I decided to move home earlier than planned. Thus, I had 5 days to pack, say goodbyes, and wrap up 2 years of life in Washington, DC. All on crutches and in 90% humidity. Not fun.

After sending my housemates to the post-office three days in a row, I decided to go on my own. The post office near me wasn't accepting international packages (anyone detect a theme here??), so I (literally) hopped on the bus, and headed to the post office on 18th and Kalorama St. NW.

After being assured it was only 1 block from the bus stop (more like 4 blocks), and without a drop of shade on either side of the street (seriously, is the world out to get me?!?), I finally made it. I finished my business there, and headed out starving. Luckily, Himilayan Heritage was right across the street. Even luckier: I had a Google Offer.

Beautiful decor--the waitor took pride in telling me that Nepal is the homeland of Buddha.

I was alone, although it was lunch time. I ordered a mango lassi, paneer pakora, vegetarian samosas, mas ko daal, and partha. A lot of food, but my order had to top $30 for the coupon to apply.

Before I even ordered, a plate with puffed rice and spiced beans arrived, which evoked the mixture described at the beginning of The Namesake (with beans in lieu of peanuts).

The lassi was thick and was an excellent soother. The samosas were excellent, although the dough was a bit salty.

The mint and tamarind chutneys were absolutely delicious; the potato-red onion mixture was spicier.

The paneer pakora was delicious, with delicate spices batttered and fried around ghee. Two filled me up, and the rest made an excellent lunch the next day (with the second samosa). The daal was great, made with black lentils and delicately flavored. But I was already full. I packed the leftovers, and enjoyoed dinner and lunch the next day.

Indie in Philly

Date: April 30, 2012
Name: Minar PalaceAddress: 1304 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA

As my date of departure looms near, I'm trying to see as many of my US friends as possible. Last week my good friend DH was visiting the east coast, and we spent the day together in Philly. I hadn't seen DH in over a year, and it was quite exciting. We met in the Amtrak station, and after a quick strategizing session (thank you free wifi), we headed to our destination: Minar Palace.

The decor is quite nice, albeit somewhat on the dark side. We opted to sit by the windows, mostly for the blog's sake.
We went for the buffet ($9.95 + tax), because we were both pretty hungry and it had sufficient vegetarian options. As an investigative eater, I'm always motivated to taste as many things as possible!

The vegetarian options including naan, rice (with cloves), samosas, saag paneer, aloo baingan, dal tadka, mint chutney and tamarind chutney. There was also a small salad bar with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, plain chickpea, raita, and more, including pickled mango.
Yum! We wiped our plates clean and went back for seconds (and thirds). The saan paneer looked like chunky homemade henna, but tasted amazing. The aloo baingan was also good, mild flavors. The dal tadka was a little spicym with strong tumeric flavoring. The samosa were good, although I've had more flavorful ones elsewhere. But the textures were quite good: a soft inside and crispy wrapping. The pickled mango was a little too spicy and overwhelmed the palette. The chutneys were superb.
The buffet had 2 dessert options: rice pudding (D) and mango ice cream (yours truly). We were both super happy with our choices. The mango ice cream was creamy without being too heavy--a great ending to our meal.

What's for lunch?

(At the Academy of Natural Sciences)

Money & Politics: Samosas DC-Style

Date: April 14, 2012
Name: Rolls on Rolls
Address: Around town, Washington, DC

Today was Occupy DC's day to shine: the Corporate Personhood Solutions working group held its much anticipated conference about how citizen movements can make getting money out of politics the issue in elections. I'd been involved in organizing the conference, and was excited for each new confirmed speaker, each new RSVP, and each logistical triumph. Yet nothing (I repeat, nothing) could beat the lunch plan: Indian food by Rolls on Rolls. Forget constitutional amendments, forget small-contribution campaigns, and forget citizens. Just give me a crispy samosa, an explosion of flavors, and, of course, a reason to blog.

From an organizational standpoint, food trucks are a great way to feed conference-goers. The truck pulls up, people eat, the truck moves on, people go back inside. Let's pretend that this is what happened, and focus on the food.

Ties on a weekend and a day of politics--you're in DC!

I tasted two types of samosas - one was flatter and doughier, and reminded me of a borekas, and was, frankly, disappointing (even--especially?-- after a week of dough-less Passover food!) The other was the typical tetrahedron with crispy, thinner dough, which I enjoyed more. The chutneys were quite spicy, the darker one tasted like cilantro-tamarind.

Chutney and lassi are made of natural foods, but are not natural people and thus (should) lack constitutional rights. But they can probably give to a Super-PAC.

From there, the meal went downhill. I essentially ate over-spiced defrosted veggies (peas, corn, and carrots, spruced with an occasional green bean), topped with cabbage and tucked into flat-bread masquerading as naan. Had I checked the menu, I would have learned that there are three vegetarian sandwiches, but only one known as "veggie." My meal was what they called "mixed veg," while the others are Paneer (described as Indian Mozzarella cheese) and Chana Masala. Indeed, there was one cube of paneer in my sandwich, and it was probably the highlight. The mango lassi had a burnt taste, very strange.

Find the frozen veggies.

My conclusion: The conference was the bride, and lunch was the bridesmaids. The mediocre meal just made the rest of the conference seem that much more awesome. Good job team!

New York, New York

Date: Presidents Day Weekend, 2012
Name: Curry Heaven
Address: 513 Grand St, Brooklyn, New York

A trip to New York isn't complete until you've seen your friends and eaten good food. According to these criteria, the weekend was a smashing success. Our last night there, we decided (OK, I strongly directed the decision) to seek Indian food. Per Chris's suggestion, we headed to Curry Heaven.

Last time you saw this duo, they were likely in diapers

The menu made some pretty strong suggestions, including dishes to try before you die. We ordered vegetable samosa, baguni, saag panir, chana masala, and aloo matar gobi. Papadams were delivered to our table with 3 chutneys: tamarind with a hint of cinnamon, red with onion, and jalapeno, both extremely spicy.

High Expectations

Chutneys - colorful, flavorful, and spicy!

The samosas were good. The potatoes were firm and the dough was thick and flavorful (if we had a nickel for every time I used those adjectives, this blog make the NYTimes best-seller list), but I was disappointed by the (frozen?) corn and green beans inside.

Yum

The baguni was quite good, but don't rush over to Brooklyn in anticipation of the Rapture. Not exactly as amazing as promised. The gobi was the ultimate let-down, utterly flavorless. The saag panir was good, and we might even re-order it in the future, although its excessive creaminess was questionable.

Baguni

Blogger's Special - a surprise (and surprisingly cold) dessert

The ambiance wasn't anything to blog about, although the television played Indian video clips, including one of synchronized singers in the ocean. All in all, a good time, although next time I'll subway over to Manhattan.

Kohinor

Date: January 10th

Name: Kohinor

Where: Crown Plaza Hotel, Jerusalem

This is a Groupon world. I don't often succumb to the temptation of fish pedicures or winter hats that have a special compartment for my earphones, but when a coupon for Indian food comes along I cannot miss such an opportunity.

The coupon was for a half price buffet lunch at Kohinor, the Jerusalem branch of the Tandoori restaurants. It's located in the Crown Plaza hotel.
Since this was a lunch buffet, I could only go on my day off and with someone who has flexible working hours. Y was the perfect candidate, and he has spent a significant amount of time in India to actually know something about their cuisine.

We met at the entrance to the hotel and felt a little out of place in such a nice hotel lobby. Not our usual atmosphere.

The place was a mix of hotel guests, people who looked like business men and random people, couples and friends. not full but not empty. We sat at a table set for two and a pitcher of water and fresh naan were served to the table. The naan was slightly doughy but obviously freshly made. We were both hungry, and we hit the buffet.

A salad bar that seemes a little out place came first with pepper salad, cabbage salad and spicy carrot salad which were not very indian but fairly good. Then there was the Lentil soup which was, well, Yellow. Yoav guessed that there was a lot of cornstarch. possibly. Wasn't bad but not special.

The main dishes gave an option of meat or vegetarian. The Chicken Tika and the rest of the meat looked good, but since both Y and I are of the vegetarian pursasian s we tasted only the veg dishes.

The Pakora was crispy and good. The rice was seasoned with cumin seeds which was good (though I dare say the cookie goddess would comment about the cumin seeds being too strong). The dahl was very seasoned with cumin and coriander. Each were quite good, but together they were a little bit too much. Y would have liked plainer rice to accompany the meal.

In addition there were potatoes which were spicy and good and carrots and peas which tasted canned. The idea of a fancy restaurant serving canned food was dissapointing. The dips offered - Sweet chutney, spicy orange sauce and spicy lemon dip. All three were good, not too spicy. Y - not as spicy as you would get in India.

The desserts were cubed pineapple and melon. and a sweet farina pudding. Since this was a kosher meat restaurant we couldn't enjoy lassi's and real rice pudding, but the farina was a nice end to the meal. There was also hot water, tea and mint leaves and some coffee, which really did not go with the idea of an Indian meal. No Chai offered, unfortunately. :(

During the meal, between catching up and updating each other on life etc. Y told stories about meals he'd eaten in India - Northern breakfast of deep fried pancake and Southern meals at peasants houses. He mentioned that most Indians are not meat eaters, which made us feel that much more authentic.

It's nice to go out to a restaurant in the middle of the day. The food was plentiful and tasty, but I was glad I didn't pay full price to eat it.

And the search continues!

Bloggers by Land, Sea, and Air

Date: December 31, 2011
Address: Seat 33H, somewhere between Paris and Toronto.

We're intrepid bloggers-eaters, willing to travel great distances for good food, ahem... for the sake of research. We're proud that our blog features Indian meals in Israel, the USA (Paris, coming soon!), consumed together and separately. Over the summer we broke the land barrier by featuring Indian food at sea, and now we're proud to break that barrier again: Indian food in the sky!

R and I met for an amazing 10-day adventure in Paris, which was full of tasty baguettes, flower-flavored cookies, delicious cheese, less-than-delicious wine, roasted chestnuts, and of course, pain au chocolat.

I left before R, leaving her to additional adventures. I boarded the plane, and prepared myself for the long trip ahead. Soon after takeoff, my vegetarian lunch arrived - samosas! There was also a red sauce with vegetables, but it wasn't anywhere near Indian.

Taking Indian food to new heights!

Air Canada meals tend to be hit-or-miss, and often feature Indian-esque dishes. This one was a great hit. Obviously, the dough wasn't anywhere near crispy, but the filling was a lovely mush of potatoes and peas that was flavored quite well. With the rice, it was a perfect meal.

A quick peek around revealed that the regular meal options were chicken or fish. So ten points (or douze points) for the veggie meal actually showing up. The one downside: everyone else's meal came with a cookie. Boohoo.

The glaring absence of the cookie