Tips on eating leftovers in Gujarat

This was written by Bob as a tip.

I used to hate to waste food as much as the next man and I've got the advanced girth to prove it, but when dining on non-veg here, (which btw seems to be getting easier everyday), I got a few tips for you.

#1. When ordering things from the menu that sound familiar to you, the food that gets served is VERY rarely what you were expecting. Lasagna has a unique look and flavor at every restaurant I've had it at. And it won't come with sausage or beef. It will come with lamb, mutton or chicken, at least at your better restaurants.

So the next time you order a prawn, (shrimp), salad, you're not going to get a martini glass with six good sized shrimp hanging on the rim. You may get some kind of 1000 island sauce with tiny chopped pieces of shrimp in it or you may get some kind of red gravy thing with 3 big king prawns. It could be anything. Anything that is except 6 shrimp hanging on a martini glass with cocktail sauce in a bed of lettuce.

#2. If you like diet sodas, you can forget any kind of diet soda other than diet coke and diet pepsi.

I've had what I considered unusually fortunate success in getting that Indian head nod, ( which I took for an affirmative response back then), when asking for diet 7-Up and DIET ROOT BEER but alas, each time I was served diet coke., get used to it or acquire a taste for diet dr pepper because there are a couple of places that carry that but only because Reasa and I went on a binge and ordered like forty cases over less than two months, then theurge went away and now those places are stuck with substantial inventory. You could probably negotiate the price down from the $2 each we were paying
#3. If you like to take your left overs home, you won't get much more than that nod asking for take out or wrap it up, or we want to take this home. You simply wave your hand in the general direction of what you are wanting to take home and say PARCEL. THAT they understand everywhere.
#4. My advice is NEVER take left overs home with you unless you know you are going straight home, you know you can get there in less than an hour and the temperature is under about 85 degrees.

a good friend and I had some tandoori chicken and cauliflower masala for lunch the other day. It was delicious but we should have gotten the half because we couldn't eat it all. She told the wait staff Parcel and I reminded her we had a couple of more stops to make and then a 40 minute ride to bopal where my bungalow is. She assured me in that special way that only female ex-pats seems to be able to do, that the chicken would be fine, I wasn't about to argue. This woman is a Tae-Kwan-Do champion. She could kick my ass. Of course so could most of the children and canines here.
We made our stops, we drove to bopal and after a while she micro upped the chicken and woofed it down. I've seen lizards eat bugs slower than she went through that chicken. I've never seen sparks come off bones before.

about 7 hours later she started feeling a little funny, yesterday she didn't feel like getting out and was running a bit of a fever. Later that evening ugly things started exiting her body from variouos orifices often at the same time.

Luckily in India you can call a doctor that will usually show up at your house within about an hour and bring with him a little magic bag of various liquid and solid medications that many of which can be inserted a variety of ways. Of course this kind of medical service doesn't grow on tress so you can expect to shell out about 7-15 dollars per visit but that would incloude the pills/shots/suppositories.

Delhi belly we almost all get at some point. it's really not that bad except foir that 4 toi 8 hiour span when some actually beg god just to take them now and stop the flow. It really sucks kids. Even mild versions will kick your ass all tghe wayy to bed and make you feel like crap for at least one whole day.


when you consider the low cost of food even at some of the most expensive rest., (hotels), it is still cheap enough that you can afford to leave the parcel instead of dragging around food growing bacteria that slugs wouldn't eat by the minute and having that for a midnite snack!

Peach Y'all
AhmedaBOB