532am
29.11.8
Pondicherry
(I arrived in Pondy on the 18th, and this post covers from the 21st to the 26th)
Okay, so first... lets look at this picture.
Notice the white netting? That's my portable mosquito net that's treated with deltamethrin (a mosquito repelant). Notice that black dot? That's a mosquito.
Notice a problem? Yes, that's right, the mosquito is dancing, yes DANCING on my mosquito repelant mosquito net. I think we need to import some American mosquitos to teach these arrogant Indian mosquitos some humility. I mean, leave me in my illusion that my mosquito net will repel you at least. And do you have to dance ON IT?
One of the primary reasons I came to Pondicherry was as a stop over on the way to Chennai, so I could get some western food.
It has turned out to be 11 days!
The majority of my time in Pondy has been spent either in my room or in restaurants, as venturing forth has been mostly out of the question, due to health concerns.
One cafe where I've spent some good time is the Coffee.com internet cafe, which serves up some nice drinks and has WIFI! Praise the Lord!
The drink pictured above is one of my favourites (Mazagrand: coffee, cream and cocoa I think). Though I do love the western feel of the place, I do have to say it's a bit pricey. (40 rps an hour internet, and 120 rps for the large drink pictured).
On the night of the 21st, I tried out a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet (aka. "the bible" for travelers). The place was Satsanga. And it has a promising courtyard atmosphere (if I were to go back, I'd ask to sit ACROSS the courtyard in the more ambianced area).
The menu looked promising, but the food was mostly mediocre (except for the main, which was quite good).
I ordered the Tsaziki and bread and a tomato basil soup to start.
The Tsaziki was decent, but the bread that it came with was quite lacking in flavour and texture (it was like eating your basic store bought loaf white bread).
I think it would have been much better if they had used a nice crusty baguette. Or even Pita bread, *gasp*!
And the tomato basil soup was nice, but a bit watery, and the basil was very faint.
The steak however surprised me!
I ordered the steak "au Roquefort" (a type of bleu cheese). And though I was expecting a pungent (and delicious) experience of bleu cheese, I actually got a surprise of a pleasant quality. The sauce was mildly Roquefort, but smooth and tastey, and really made the quite beautifuly cooked steak one of my best steak experiences in India. They actually cooked it MEDIUM! Oh and I also forgot until this night, that European scales and American scales are different for meat. I think that the american scale is one notch longer cooked than the European scale. E.g, a medium done American steak is equivalent to a medium/well done European steak. So a medium rare American is a medium European. I believe this is how it works out. But in any case, this is how the Indians seem to cook steak.
My only problem with the main, was that the potatoes being so white and the Roquefort sauce being so white, made my plate look quite bland. So on plating marks, I give the main a 1 out of 5. The potatoes were good and ample, I just wish there were veggies in exchange for half the potatoes.
(mass time! be back.)
559am
730am
For Dinner the next day, I decided to go "off book". And try a place that wasn't listed in the LP... Cafe 41. The menu wasn't so spectacular, and seemed like your average Indian place that was trying to cater to Tourists. The first disappointment was the only French thing on the menu was out of stock, as well as a few other continental meals. So I went with the roasted chicken.
If you can't tell, that's a meager portion. It was tasty, but instead of ordering something to supliment it, I decided to finish up, and then head out.
I headed to Coffee.com's new sister store Trufiluko (or something of the sort) that's right next to Cafe 41, Rendezvous (the good French restaurant) and Au feu bois (the tasty pizza place).
I grabbed a nice pot of tea (80 rps).
And a nice large (probably about a foot or longer in length) chicken, cheese, and garlic butter Baguette.
The baguette was nice (the garlic butter/cheese combo was a bit hard to finish, by the end). If I was to get it again, I'd split it with someone (or pocket half for later), and enjoy it as it was meant to be, a snack.
The internet at Trufi is actually more expensive that coffee.com 60rps an hour. But it also has wifi. The atmosphere is not yet there (it's on a soft openning while they work more on it), but I have hopes that it'll be a quite comfy place when finished. It already is a very nice place with a beautiful wood bar and nice trimmings, but it reminds me a bit of the Shinning's bar... "Here's Johnny!"
The next day I decided to eat dinner at Hot Breads, but while walking there, I noticed that Daily Bread actually looked like a restaurant. It's on the second floor of the building, so I was always a bit hesitant to go up there. So I decided to try out Daily Bread (as there seemed to be a large amout of people eating there, and nobody eating dinner at Hot Breads).
This is when I wrote the post about eating foreign foods... so if you were wondering what I ended up eating...
Beef Boulandaise (or something of the sort). It was tasty, though I doubt it was anything like the real version. The meal was filling and well made and I could actually tell that there was an effort at not over cooking all the stuff in the gravy, which is often the case in most restaurants in India. And this nice effort made the onion's cooked, but not limp, somewhere right around perfect.
For desert, I decided to stick with my original choice and head downstairs to Hot Breads.
A croissant chocolat
and a black forest cake.
With an okay cappuccino. (The best in town are at coffee.com).
The desert was delicious. Especially the croissant!
In between meals, me and my favourite bottle would have discussions on the merits of health.
RexCof. It's by far my favourite cough syrup in the world. (It works wonders.) And I've even got Myron and Sylvia on the band wagon (we all were sick at the same time).
It's composed of two things:
Chloropheniramine Maleate (what ever that is)
and
Codeine phosphate.
I bless the doctor that perscribed it to me.
On the 25th for dinner, I went to Au feu bois for pizza. And I met a cool German guy. We ate together and then went to the 24 hour coffee shop on the beach and chatted.
It was so nice to talk to a westerner who has been in India for a good amount of time, and who has similar interests! We talked about India and it's politics, and it was refreshing to have someone who could view it similarly to the way I do. He may not have agreed completely with my assessments, but we were able to hold an actual discussion, where we would make points and counter points. And eventually both come out with a better knowledge. He also agreed that Indians are propagandized (and they don't even know it). Now, I know I'm not insane! Luckily, the propaganda that Indian's receive is mostly benign. Though some of it sounds similar to the propagandas that happened in the west in the early 1900s... the Greater Germany, Italy, and Russia movements...
The next day, I went back to Daily Bread and had (I think) the chicken Cordon bleu. One of my favourites.
Luckily I wasn't disappointed, as I already had an idea of what I was going to get, from the previous meal there. It (obviously) isn't a western cordon bleu, but it was tasty and nice.
That night I decided to try their deserts... A chocolate Eclair
and a pretty nice cup o coffee.
They were nice finishes to the meal.
The next morning I came back and tried breakfast. Originally I was going to go to kyassha ai ashaa (or whatever) that was listed in the LP... but it doesn't exist anymore... so I went to satsanga... which wasn't serving breakfast... so I came back to DB.
I grabbed a chocolate pancake (closer to a crepe).
And a spanish omlette with a fresh sweet lime juice.
It was a very nice breakfast.
And now that's done.
Blessings!
~edward
809am
