From Biryani to Thukpa and everything in between: Travelogue of an obsessive foodie – I

28May08

N.B: Photographs of crucial food items might be missing as I couldn’t resist their temptation and gobbled them in double quick time only to crib later: Shit, where’s the meat?

I will use the words blissful, divine, breathtaking, magnificent and a lot more adjectives at the drop of a hat.

After grappling with my writer’s block for about a week since my return from the most beautiful place on earth – Ladakh, half of those days spent in thinking what to write, I finally decided to put words on blogprint.

Initially I had planned for a complete day-to-day itenary meticulously noting down everything we did: from planning of the trip to all adventures performed but I found too many resources and well written travelogues about it already present in blogosphere. Hence I decided to focus on the two things I like the most (no not them), food and music.

The Ladakh trip was planned by a friend and his other friends (Md. Bulluddin Jehangir, Anuradha Patel and the man who shall not be named) since days and I just jumped in unable to resist the temptations of Pangong lake and a sumptuous Wazwan on the way (The plan had a road trip from Jammu to Leh stopping over at Srinagar and Kargil).

Day 1

Although the trip started on an ominous note what with the friend’s bag’s belt snapping and he forgot some moolah and an obscene amount of Cadbury’s Crackle at home. How much I would have relished in the flight to Delhi. Aaargh…But that was forgotten immediately in the company of the inimitable Mr. Jehangir who joined us at our home. Mr. Jehangir, an entrepreneur and CEO of fullorissa.com, is a character in himself and you just can’t escape being affected by his wise words and spontaneity. We didn’t sleep the night and after finishing some last minute packing started for the airport. My hunger was killed by the exorbitant rates at the airport. We spent some time in the swanky new Landmark store at the airport where I found harr…harr…an absolute collector’s edition of Sin City by Frank Miller. Although that’s in my wish list but I gave it a momentous pass. The hunger was killing me and I forgot my earphones. The best thing I thought was to get on the flight and sleep. There were some kids creating havoc in the flight and I resisted all temptations to strangle them and slept. One hostess was niiice.

Day 2

I woke to a beautiful aerial view of Delhi forgetting everything about the last nights hunger pangs and monstrous kids. Lajpat Nagar was the destination to catch up with the other journey members. I was majorly impressed with Delhi this time around what with the all CNG vehicles and numerous parks around the corner. The breakfast had to be put and a budding entrepreneur friend took us to the very famous Tiwari’s where I put hazaar tasty calories with Samosa, Mutter Kachauri, Puri Sabzi, Chole Bhature and the hot gulab jamuns. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmh. After breakfast went to see the Lotus Temple, took some snaps and returned home. In the temple I encountered another set of irritating kids and equally dumb parents who did nothing to stop their kids from destroying the serenity of the temple with their chaotic wails. The heat in Delhi was killing me. I came home – I crashed onto the bed – and I slept till 5:30 pm – and I was hungry again. This time it was a saunter in the lanes of Lajpath nagar and we went to Bikaner’s (or was it Bikanerwala?) where I had a divine Raj Kachauri and masala lassi. After the thulp we sauntered some more and came across a free tasting session of the new Slice (Of Kamasutra oops…Aamasutra fame). Being a sucker for free things we went along and were pleasantly surprised at the improvement – marketing zing-bang apart it really tasted of alphonso mangoes.

At 7:20 pm we started for New Delhi station and in no time we were eating the pathetic food served to us in the train to Jammu. And I am spent for the day.

Tomorrow is going to be very hectic but the quest for the best Wazwan in Srinagar is a temptation I can’t resist.

No music other than the cacophony of fellow passengers.

Day 3

Reached Jammu at 9:30 am – used the waiting room to good effect – and started immediately for Srinagar. We got a shared Tata Sumo and soon were enjoying the picturesque valleys. We had a light breakfast at someplace I don’t remember where we had some very oily but very tasty bread omelettes and pakodis. We reached Kudh, a place famous for its sweets especially the kalakand and patisha, where we bought sweets from Premji Kudhwale and continued till lunch time when we reached Peerah.

The options were Roti-sabzi and Rajma-rice and the foodie in me took a life changing decision – Rajma-rice and I can go on a limb and say was the best I had ever eaten. A layer of ghee – on top of it a layer of rice smothered in ghee – covered in Rajma dripping ghee and it was pure bliss.

A day which shall be preserved in memory for the musical delights offered – Thanks to Wajid bhai, our driver. Some songs which had long been forgotten suddenly came alive in the Kenwood speakers. It was as if we have gone 20 years back in time. Starting from Shabbir Kumar to Mohd. Aziz – pure gold. Slowly the tempo increased and we were on a chronological journey of Hindi cinema music. We reached the naughty nineties, the decade of super duper jhankaar beats when Kumar Shaanu ruled the audio waves.

We reached Srinagar at around 8:00 pm and found a nice hotel – the houseboat rents we heard were going for a premium and we had to kill our houseboat dreams. By 9:00 pm I was ready for the Wazwan at Mughal Durbar on the Residency road. A 5 min walk from our guest house and we reached Mughal Durbar.

My vegetarian friends ordered for some kasmiri saag curry and musroom-paneer while yours truly gorged on a huge chunk of delectable lamb rib – Tabak maaz and meatballs – gushtaba and rishta. Yes, I had something struck off from my 30-things-to-do-before-you-are-30 list. The final frontier only is the complete Wazwan course during a Kashmiri wedding. If things come to such pass than I do not mind marrying some beautiful Kashmiri lass only for the Wazwan. Okay – the lass and the wazwan.

To be continued…

Filed under: Food, Fun, India, Life, Travel   |  3 Comments
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