Indian Food

On Tuesday of this week, I met up with two people from my Social Context class, Alex and Manar. I've known both of them for a while now, but aside from hanging out with Alex, I had never hung out with Manar. One day in class I and Alex were talking, and I said that for one of my social-living projects I would like to try Indian food. Manar overheard me say this and a look swept across his face that can only be described as a mix of disappointment, shock, disgust, and intrigue. "You have never tried Indian food? What's wrong with you?" were his kind words. We had a laugh about it, and the three of us made plans to meet some time around 6 for supper.

I wanted to try Indian food for no particular reason aside from that I had never tried it before. I'm a big fan of cultural foods but I never actually had a big yearning for Indian food...so why not try it before I judge it?

We met at Guy-Concordia metro and walked to the corner of Rene-Levesque and Guy, turned left and went to Buffet Maharaja. We were given a table and some water right away, which I thought was funny. Next, our waiter brought by some garlic bread, but the Indian version. It looks like a really thick pita, which was covered in butter, garlic and I'm guessing parsley. It was really good, but yet again I'm a big fan of any kind of bread.

I made Alex and Manar come with me to the buffet because I had no idea what I was getting into. They walked me around its parameters and gave me a brief explanation of what everything was, what I should try, and what I might like. I settled on getting a somosa, rice, butter chicken, and this spicy cauliflower thing.

I really liked everything I ate except for the cauliflower; it was a bit soggy. Over dinner, we were talking about how the food wasn't as spicy as we thought it would be, and Manar explained to me and Alex that the food was adapted to fit the "white man's taste." That spun off into another conversation about how man are such a destructive species. I agreed with that, but I also said that we're the only species to want to survive, and the only ones who know how to make that happen. We exploit our environment to help sustain our growing population. I also gave the example that lions don't not eat because there is a shortage of zebra, for example. I said this to illustrate that we are not the only animals that exhibit selfish behaviour; we all want to survive. I hadn't had a conversation like that for a while, and I really appreciated their inputs.

We finished our meals then moved on to desert. I tried a little chocolate thing about the size of half a cigar, got some pineapple, this thing pronounced "goolamjam" (according to Manar), this mush looking stuff in pink sauce, and these tiny egg-shaped white ovals in the same pink sauce. The chocolate part was standard desert stuff, the pineapple was awesome and I hadn't had any in a while, and then it kind of went down hill from there.

The "goolamjam" was a warm dough in a syrupy sauce. As I bit into it and tasted it, it reminded me of Kraft Dinner Mac and Cheese. I told Manar and Alex and they started laughing, but once they tried theirs they both ended up agreeing with me. It was so odd to bite into something sweet and have it remind us of a dinner. Then the white ovals in the pink sauce ended up being sweet cheese, and so was the pink mush, and I'm not going to lie, I got really grossed out. I ended up just eating pineapple, and I was actually really satisfied with it.

We finished our night by having chai, which is an Indian tea. I've had that before though; I love the taste. and it's a really comforting beverage. We paid about $25 each including tips, which was kind of pricey for just a buffet, but the experience was nice and spending time with people I don't usually see was really fun. I'll be honest: although I liked trying the foods, I don't think I will ever have a craving for Indian food. I kind of compared it to a poor man's food...lots of carbs, kind of simple ingredients aside from the lush variety of spices of course. I'm glad I went nonetheless, at least I can say that I tried it. It also allowed me to be social, which is important to me since I keep to my usual group of friends and am rather shy.

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All images are from Google.