Forking Tasty

P.I.E. WITH Shaa’ir

When I first met Shaa’ir I was stuffed in the back of a van in India, cars were wizzing by on my right and a gaggle of kids were grouping up on the right. She poked her head in the passenger door to say a quick hello before we headed out to our next video shoot location. Shaa’ir(Monica) is one half of the Mumbai based electro, funk duo Shaa’ir + Func.

A few days later the shoot was completed and Shaa’ir, my video director/producers and I headed out for some Diwali partying.(Func had to run off to a gig in Australia) But, before that we hit some grub. A chinese restaurant in Bandrha would do the trick. Shaa’ir ordered up a bunch of dishes and we all dug in.

Shaa’ir has a beautiful voice and a welcoming energy about her. She has an interesting story in that she grew up in the United States (did her time in NYC) but then moved to Mumbai because she felt the creative energy there was what she needed. Over the few days I hung out with her I could sense these two sides to her. On October 25th I realized why I had such a strong feeling of her character so quickly. We both celebrate that day as our day of birth. Although almost a decade apart scorpios know scorpios. Rather than me try and explain all this more, here is the final documentary we were filming of both Shaa’ir + Func. It will fill in their story much better than I could.

What we ate:

Spicy prawns
Chili chicken
Vegetable fried rice
Chicken kebabs
Fried Cabbage

Dewali Celebration

I suppose this is something like when my Jewish friends eat Chinese food on Christmas day. Diwali is the Indian-Christmas-like-New-years celebration in which on the first 3 nights everyone plays with firecrackers from dusk ’till 1am. And, I mean non-stop. 4 year olds lighting off cherry bombs. 15 year olds setting off 190 books of firecrackers in the middle of a busy parking lot. No rules and no reaction from the locals. It IS the way it IS. Happy Dewali is all I can say.

To celebrate I was headed up to…

Final Score: India 1 – Jason 0

Wow, what a tough country. I am humbled. Although the above video shows great food and a seemingly nice slice of India there is much more to the story than that. I think of myself as a good traveller and a great eater, but India knocked me back. I went into this trip with the idea that I was going to eat and explore the deepest corners of Mumbai. My friends at home, who have been to India, warned me about the shocking contrast I would find. They had explained that the food, particularly street food, was dangerous and WILL get me sick. I heard their plea but pushed it as far back in my mind as I could. Through out this post I will show pictures that are appropriate for the words you are reading but not so appropriate for a food blog. Some are quite disturbing so please, if you choose to read on understand that this post is very different from the usual.

Breaking Breakfast

It’s no doubt to anyone who has been following this last week that I love the breakfast at the hotel. In four days I have had four different breakfasts from the same buffett. All anchored with my delicious American coffee, I dove deep into Indian breakfast favorites, savored the fresh fruit bar, pounced on the made-to-order-omelette station and supplemented with everything from a banana smoothy to a hard boiled egg. But my all time favorite was a simple treat that anchored my stay in Mumbai…

Travel Beers and an Indian Hero

On our final night we opted to sit out in the humid air by the pool. I decided to knock back a few cold ones to accent the successful business trip. We had accomplished a ton in the 4 short days and it was worth a mini celebration. My first was in honor of our host country.

Second, I opted to…

Masala My Tongue

We ate in another of the Taj Hotels amazing restaurants again last night. This is part of what I meant by India is winning when I said that in my last post. Masala Kraft did an amazing job or creating dish after dish that please the palette and tantalized the tongue. The above picture was a flavor layered crisp with a pomegranate on top. Great accent. And, especially tasty because it was not ordered BUT compliments of the chef. Here is what followed…

On is on a roll

Weird but true, Jen nicknamed me On when we were in Berlin a few years back. On is short for Jas(ON) in case you missed that. Our site check yesterday took us to the Phoenix Mills mall in Mumbai. Of course we needed to sample some chow as we discussed business. We settled on a spot in teh food court named “On a Roll” I had this paneer malai seekh roll and the below biryani rice as my first foray into Indian Fast Food. Not the best BUT at this point in the trip, India is winning. More on what that means in a few posts…

India Breakfast Buffet, is that legal?

Anything you can imagine from any country you can imagine, minus Africa.(I know that’s not a country)

Mouthwatering Moist Meat

This is a slow roasted lamb shank. When I tell you melt-in-your-mouth, I mean it. Jen and Brit both ordered chicken dishes that were even moister. I have never had chicken that tender and wet and flavorful all at the same time. My friend Preethi warned me about the delicious chicken and it blew any idea of what I thought she meant from my imagination.

This was dinner on night one. We went to the top of the tower in our hotel to Souk, a Lebanese themed restaurant. Of course the meal was packed with cultural differences, stories about service standards and other anecdotal fun but in keeping true to my goal I will stop with the meat and let you imagine the deliciousness. Next up breakfast.