Eating and sleeping in India

Since this is a tour, accommodations are 4-5 star.  This means bigger breakfast buffets, two queen size beds, not a double bed, bags brought to our door and friendly, smiling people to help you in the elevator or assist you in passing through the metal detector at the front door.  No complaints there.

Eating, however, whether we are on a tour or our own is always an adventure.  At least we choose it to be.  Our breakfast buffet the first day was both late and large, so we just skipped lunch entirely.  We could have eaten at our hotel, the Crowne Plaza for dinner, they had a Mexican Restaurant!? (with a 15% discount), but we preferred to walk a mile or so the the local train/metro station, find an ATM and see what sort of restaurants the locals eat at.

We found a food court of sorts, passed on Subway and McDonalds and dined at the Kabob Roll Café.  Gloria got the Vege Thali and I, the Chicken Biryani, with an egg on top.  Both, pictured below.  We also had a Pineapple Lassi, (hold the ice).  No  dessert, but back at the hotel, I chased it with a Cipro, (antibiotic), just to be safe!  Excellent food, enough for 4 people and a total of $7.00.  A good score for our first dinner in India.

Onward to Agra.  First, another buffet breakfast in Delhi.  Buffets typically have a ‘western’ section, and ‘India’ section, and frequently an ‘Asian’ section.  We usually stick to the western section for breakfast and hit the local, ethnic choices for the other meals of the day.  For lunch we stop at a roadside eatery.  We are still full from breakfast, so we pass on lunch and enjoy some gelato.  Dinner is at our the hotel in Agra, another nice 4 star.  Another buffet.  Again, the three ethic sections, we stick to Indian.  Good, not great, still a buffet……Tomorrow is sunrise viewing of the Taj Mahal, followed by breakfast buffet.

Agra had a good breakfast buffet, we took the dinner buffet the first night, but it was too much food, too late in the day.  We passed on the dinner buffet the second night, just ate a HUGE breakfast buffet and a few snacks during the day.  What are we starting to miss?  Salad.  Cold vegies.

While at the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve they fed us all three meals.  Three buffets a day.  No ‘western’ food.  All good, but a bit monotonous.  With an early morning game drive, we would eat breakfast at 10, then lunch at 12:30, not enough time to digest and start up again. Also, our guide, Ashok forbad us from eating any of the salads they had.   They all looked excellent, but he wouldn’t even eat them since he wasn’t sure how the vegies were washed and prepared.  He kept saying ‘better safe then sorry’.  Room was nice. An outdoor and indoor shower!  Nice swimming pool.  Actually relaxed for a couple of hours after the game drive.

Agra. The high tea at the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will be good party topic, not much more.  The history of the original compound was more interesting than the ‘high tea’.  The waiters were very friendly, and quite proud that they had appeared in the movie.

We are at the Le Meridien for three nights.  This is a 5 star hotel in the US, 3-4 star here.  It actually rained last night.  Cleared the air a bit, but still pretty smoggy.  Another huge buffet breakfast.

This the the cold cereal bar at the breakfast bar

We wanted more than snacks for the rest of the day, so we headed out around 4 to look for a place to eat.  A few blocks from the hotel was a group of engineering colleges.  School was over for the day and everyone was walking somewhere.  Most stared as we walked around and through them, one group wanted to know where we were from, another wanted to know how old we were (?!), all very friendly.  We did find a little restaurant though, Pizza World.  Went inside and discovered we could get a medium pizza to share for $2.50!  We went for it.

A decent deep dish pie.  We did chase it with a Cipro once we got back to the hotel room, though.

This is a great sign considering the place was deafening.  Another sign said, “Don’t Waste Food”

A big group of engineering students.  They thought it was pretty cool so see us in there……I think.

This is an India pancake.  Very nice.  Very thin, with a tomato chutney and an unknown chutney.  No maple syrup here.

Pool side at the Le Meridien.  We thought this was pretty nice till we walked next door to the Fairmont.  As we entered the gate in the wall surrounding the property, (!?), there was a brass fanfare from above, whoa, then as we entered the hotel, someone escorted us to the reception playing some sort of stringed instrument.  Yep, felt pretty special……

Breakfast on the train from Delhi to Amritsar.  First, the train was a huge disappointment, but we weren’t expecting any breakfast, so as they were serving us four different trays that was a bit of a surprise.  The result is below.

First, the menu.  We were only given the vegetarian (!) option. This rendering is on our tray cover.

The first ‘course’ was actually the cup of lemon water on the tray below.  After that was a pot of hot water, tea and a biscuit.

The fourth tray was breakfast itself as listed on the tray cover.  Where are the breakfast buffets when we need them……

 

We leave for home today.  Final thoughts:  Best meal was lunch we had at the wedding.  Worst meal was the one mentioned above, breakfast on the train.  Buffets………time to move on, too much food to eat in on setting, although when you only eat one or two meals for the day, they do stick with you.  What did we miss? 7-11’s!  These are found most everywhere in the world.  A quick run in to grab something cold or packaged. 

Overall, hotels were great.  Around 4 star, plenty of amenities, a nice retreat from the craziness of Indian street life.  Thumbs up to anyone interested in visiting India.

 

Biggest food surprise:

A vegetarian McDonalds.  Hell just froze over……….