For connoisseurs and gourmets…

It was a great time this weekend. For most part of the time, I spent my time with my one-month-old niece and it was a great time with her. It was my lucky phone call to one of my friends that landed me into one of the most different kind of treats I have ever had.

My friends in Bangalore were celebrating the birthday of three of them- Kannan, Gikki and Murugu and these three people planned an exquisite treat in a place whose name I don’t know of. It was a lane full of eateries, from North Indian Chat corners to Chinese food courts. Let me try to recollect the exotic foodstuffs we had.

It was South Indian food first. We started with steaming idlis, onion uthappams, masala dosas and plain dosas. Next we went to the Chinese corner and we had fried rice and Gobi Manchurian. We returned to some Karnataka styled bajji shop where we had different kinds of bajjis-capsicum and chilli. Though they didn’t have the traditional taste of Tamil bajjis, they did have a different taste, with lime playing a dominant role. Next we wanted to have some sweets for a difference. This time we had a typical north Indian sweet, which had crisp noodle like substance soaked in a sweet yellow hot liquid. I don’t remember the name, but it was very good. As we strolled the road, we came across a paratha roll corner where we had paratha rolls-gobi, paneer and mixed vegetable to be precise. Then we went on to have some fruit salads and one peculiar substance that I tasted for the first time was Gulkand-which was rose petals grounded in honey. Then we wanted to finish off with deserts. Cold badam milk and basundhi were our choices and they both tasted extremely good. I was done with that but a few of my friends still had some room for ice creams, masala coke and milk shakes. We also bought some chips to munch on our return journey. The connoiseurs who feasted ont he above stuff were Nithish, Prasanna Srinivasan, Hemanth, Sai, DSP, Shyam and myself.

It was indeed an exotic treat and I guess this will stay in the minds of all of us for a long time…and for those who are reading this-bon appetite.