FOOD!

I will try to describe some of the food options here at the guesthouse. We have eaten almost exclusively at the guest house, so you know, the food might not be the yummiest of foods, but there are always good options.

Breakfast: This is the hardest meal of the day for me. There are muffins that are almost always dry and have candied fruit in them and taste like dry cupcakes. The buffet consists of: some sort of processed meat (ham, chicken sausage, chicken salami, etc), hard-boiled eggs that are almost always rendered inedible because the shells are broken, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, cheese, cut papaya (which I think tastes exactly like dead person) and oatmeal. I have oatmeal or corn flakes. Every day. There are some options on the Indian food side if I am feeling in the mood for a savory breakfast. They have Pav, which is basically a grilled roll. There are  sometimes fried bread and a savory rice and vegetable pilaf to put inside it. Coconut chutney is green but is pretty good. You can order eggs, although unless you order scrambled eggs they tend to be very raw. You can also get ice cream at any meal. Austin typically orders it because he is just getting off shift and breakfast is really his dinner. He also orders it at dinner time though, so I guess he gets ice cream for his “breakfast” too.

Lunch: There is always chicken. Prepared different ways everyday. My favorite is chicken fajitas because then the chicken is in strips instead of chunks. Most Indians at least around here are vegetarians, so they seem to think that we meat eaters don’t really care if all of the meat is mostly bones. There are many bites that I take that I think are safe only to find a stray bone. I have become an expert at picking the breast pieces because they have the least bones and the most meat for me to chunk  up to feed Landon. There is always another meat, going between pork, fish, beef, and mutton. I read in my travel book that typically mutton is goat and beef is water buffalo. Again, lots of bones are present and it is hard to find meat. There are always potatoes and Landon usually eats those. Vegetables prepared various ways come next, usually the same mix of green beans, carrots and cauliflower. Then there is overcooked pasta and rice. There are many Indian options as well. Dal is yellow lentils and it is not very flavorful. My favorite so far is chana masala- which is chickpeas in a yummy sauce. Austin likes a mixture of okra, potatoes and spices. I totally go by smell on the Indian side. If I open up the container and like how it smells, I eat it. If I open up the dish and I don’t like how it smells, I don’t eat it. It’s as simple as that.

 

These look like rotis to me. Chapatis are more oblong and thicker, and look different from tortillas

Dinner is much the same as lunch, albeit with different options. I also forgot there is a fresh salad type bar with peeled cucumbers we can eat. I tried the carrots once but I got sick. With lunch and dinner, you can order chapatis or rotis. Chapatis are grilled flat breads that can be plain or sprinkled liberally with chunks of garlic. YUM! Really, they are good! Rotis are tortillas. One thing that really surprised me was that Indian desserts are oftentimes sweeter than American desserts. Having only been to European countries where the desserts are rich but not as sweet, that was shocking. A few favorites are a fried dough thingy that has fennel seeds in it, so it tastes a little like licorice. It is then placed in a sticky syrup that makes it super sticky and crunchy. Another favorite is what Austin calls the “pancake ball”. It is a ball of something that does taste like a pancake, that somehow stays together when soaked in a honey syrup. They are very good. They do lots of rice type puddings that aren’t as sweet or yummy with rice and other grains. My favorite of all is the coconut barfi. It tastes like the inside of a Mounds bar or something, which is weird that I like it because I used to hate Mounds bars. My favorite dessert on the “Continental” side of the dessert menu is a tie between brownies and Baked Alaska. I don’t think I had actually eaten a baked Alaska in the states. It seemed too hard to make. I did make an ice cream cake once for Austin, though. Anyway, they do the ice cream and cake and even the torched meringue on top. It is good, even when it’s mostly melted because they don’t have it refrigerated during dinner. 

Coconut burfi aka barfi