05.23.06

A foreigner in Pune - II

Posted in Travel at 7:54 am by The Editor

Eating In Pune

After 5 days of working in Pune, I have yet to go around much except for the little area in Koregaon Park bound by North Main Road, Lane 5, 6, 7, and 8, all within walking distance from hotel to office. It’s Friday evening so I finally take the time to read up a little on Pune.

This neighbourhood in Pune apparently has quite a bit of Western influence mainly due to the large number of Western tourists attracted here by the (in)famous Osho Meditation Resort. When my coworker PB from Toronto asked if I’ve been there yet, I could only shake my head in ignorance. Then he proceeded to tell me that this is a fancy ashram of a guru whose’s theory of sex leading to spiritual enlightening is quite controversial. More on this on another day.

Anyway, the point is, there are a lot of eateries around our office that serve international fares. With a daily allowance from my company and no kitchen to speak of, I have more than enough opportunities to try them out (that’s three meals a day, baby).

Over the last few days, I’ve already wrote about my experience at The Great Punjab, Mogini Cakes, Merlot, Natural Ice-Cream, and of course, my daily takeout/room service from Punjab Rasoi. One of my favourite places for light lunch and dinner is Naughty Angel Cafe. The owners are super nice and the place is comfortably casual. I love their sandwiches, freshly-squeezed juice, omelets, and cookies. I had their masala vegetable omelet (served with toasts, roasted potatos, and the ubiquitous ketchup) and litchi bubbly freshner for lunch today. I have already been there three times since I arrived in Pune. Their vegetable club sandwich is also excellent.

Although there’s a Pizza Hut directly across the street from our office, I prefer the thin-crust pizza at Il Fungo Magico next door. I had the Bombay pizza for dinner tonight. It is topped with spicy tomato sauce, mushrooms, onion, mozzarella, paneer, and coriander. The crust is not as thin as I would like but the hint of spiciness in the sauce was delicious. I can see myself ordering pizza from them again for those late-night coding marathons…

I walked into Malaka Spice for lunch by accident. I could not figure out what kind of food they serve based on their name. Turns out they have a menu of southeast asian dishes (Chinese, Japaneses, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysia). Well, if I had known, I probably wouldn’t go in the first place but since I already sat myself down, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.

I was glad to find dishes made with lots of visible large pieces of vegetables. I keep to a vegetarian diet while I’m in Pune but I often find the food leaning towards more carbs than vegetables. The Crunchy Vegetable Stirfry with Black Bean and Sambal Sauce was alright and the roti was tasty. I wouldn’t mind coming back for my vegetable fix. The mocktail in the picture above is called Knight In White Satin (coconut milk, pineapple juice, and a scoop of ice-cream). I ordered it for the soul purpose of having some dairy to digest my Malarone.

My coworkers love to bring in Indian sweets to work and I had the opportunity to sample some. The types of Indian sweets I find in Toronto are often cloyingly sweet so I was pleasantly surprised to try some delicious ones at the office. My first day in the office was the first day of work after Diwali. JK treated me to some homemade almond cookies shaped into a ball named Laddoo. The cookie was tender and full of toasty almond flavour. Today, SK brought in sweets for his birthday. I tried a piece of rustic looking pistachio pastry. It was very flaky and fragrant with rosewater. I liked it very much. Only problem is, it’s difficult for me to track down the names of all these sweets!

Naughty Angel Cafe

“Prince Town Flair” R.K. Properties, Lane 8, near Meera Nagar Society

Koregaon Park, Pune

Il Fungo Magico

Shop No. 18, Lane 6, Vrindavan Society

Koregaon Park, Pune

Malaka Spice

Malaka Spice Lane, North Main Road

Koregaon Park, Pune

Autorickshaw

There are autorickshaws everywhere in Pune. They are the equivalent of taxis and for the most part, a very convenient form of transportation. I had my first rickshaw ride yesterday and it was quite a memorable experience. Each rickshaw takes up to three passengers. Instead of a car, I would describe it as a motocycle with three wheels, backseat, and a lid. Like most taxi drivers around the world, rickshaw drivers are probably the most aggressive breed of drivers on the road. When it comes to overcharging foreigners, they have quite a few tricks up their sleeves.

To prepare me for the ride, LM asked if I have my own handkerchief. At first I had no idea but then she explained that the pollution is so bad on the road it is best to cover my nose and mouth with a handkerchief during the trip. Makes perfect sense. We went to the street corner by their apartment and LM negotiated with the driver. Apparently, the driver asked for a flat rate which was obviously overpriced and LM asked him to charge by the meter instead. When he refused, we walked away and attempted to flag another rickshaw instead. Only then did the driver agreed to use the meter.

Once we got on the rickshaw, it was a bumpy ride. The driver pretended not to know his way to our destination and LM yelled at him with directions. The driver took an especially long route on purpose and that road was completely covered with potholes. By the time we finally arrived, the meter was the price he originally asked for. These are the kind of little things that can really annoy.

Not Feeling So Well

I think I’m getting a cold. I have a bad case of headache and sore throat over the weekend. I hope this is not going to get worse, I still have lots of work to do and I can’t afford to get sick.

I ended up spending the weekend in the most unimaginative way possible. I slept in and worked in the office in the afternoon. So much work to catch up. I’m hoping that once I delivered my current documentation project by the end of this week, I will have an easier time. I still keeping my hopes up.

On the bright side, I had two good meals today. For a late breakfast/early lunch, I went to Sweet Chariot Cafe. I ordered a banana chocolate smoothie, mushroom croissant, and mushroom quiche. To my surprise, the croissant was flaky and buttery. Not bad at all. Well, the quiche was a little soggy and I much prefer quiche with cheese lining the crust to keep the crust flaky. That being said, I still enjoyed the quiche very much. The smoothie, on the other hand, was not to pleasant. If it wasn’t for the Malarone (taken with dairy), I wouldn’t have order it at all. I also ordered a vegetarian pizza roll/bun for takeout. It was nicely spicy and the bread was deliciously soft.

I went to The Great Punjab for dinner. It’s a fancy restaurant but I like the food there. I ordered a mango masala, tawa sabzi, kabuli naan, and gulab jamun. The mango masala was a sweet and sour drink in a deep leafy green colour. I have no idea where the mango came into play. I didn’t like the taste too much on its own but when I drank it with the rest of my meal, it was rather refreshing. The tawa sabzi is a mixture of cauliflower, okra, paneer, mushroom, and potato cooked in dried spice. It was very flavourful and I prefer this style of cooking over the dishes drenched in sauce. The kabuli naan is a piece of naan topped with a mixture of dried fruit and nuts. It was very very delicious. I highly recommend this item. For dessert, I honestly had no idea what gulab jamun was and I still wasn’t sure after eating it. In a small bowl of syrup, there were four small balls of cooked dough of cardamom and rosewater flavour. The texture of the dough was nothing like what I had before. There’s not much gluten development but yet the dough held together nicely. I’m neutral about this dish.

Sweet Chariot Cafe

Shop No 1, MIT Corner

Koregaon Park, North Main Road, Pune

The Great Punjab

5, Jewel Tower, Off North Main Road

Koregaon Park, Pune

Becoming A Regular

It’s only been less than two weeks but I’ve already become a regular patron at a couple of restaurants around the office. How do I know? Three letters: I-O-U. I understand that being a foreigner, it’s quite easy to be recognized particularly because the area of Pune where we’re situated feels like a closely-knitted community. However, I was amazed when the owners of the restaurants remember my food preference (no grilled sandwiches please) and ask me how I find the cookies I purchased last time based on their recommendation. Admittedly, I ate at this restaurant four times last week and purchased takeout pastry from this bakery three times. So yeah, I would consider myself a regular too.

Last night, after a late night at the office, I was walking back to the hotel. Someone called me from a car and it was the owners of the restaurant. They were heading home after work and offered me a ride seeing it was rather late. Since I was only a few steps away from the hotel, I politely declined. But at the same time, I really appreciate the gesture.

YP came back from vacation today after visiting his home town in Kerala and he brought in sweets to treat us at the office. The brown morsels in the paper bag are called sharakara upperi and is a specialty of Kerala. They tasted crunchy, nutty, and full of cardamom flavour. I first didn’t like it too much but after a couple of pieces, it really grew on me. The yellow chips in the middle were banana chips. The pink pieces at the front are coconut candies. The coconut candies were quite tasty.

My cold is getting better although I now have a case of runny nose. I think I luck out this time for not coming down with anything worse. It would be such a drag to get sick. I didn’t sleep well last night though…my new neighbour at the hotel is a family with screaming little kids who either like to play in the hallway or the walls are just very thin…

I’ve started eating at the office-provided lunch and snack meal service. I’ll write more about it next time after I get some decent pictures. It’s actually quite interesting.

Office Food (Pune Edition)

I spend a lot of time at the office. I mean A LOT. Naturally, that means I eat at the office more frequent than I care to count. In Toronto, I typically like to eat my simple lunch of bread, fruit, and yogurt at my desk, occasionally breaking the pattern with takeout from the Italian cafeteria downstairs. Here in Pune, we have a very different arrangement.

Our office has a top-floor terrace that we use as our cafeteria. Every day at 13:00 and 18:00, we are served lunch and snack by a local “catering company” (I use that term loosely). On a long table, we first pick up a stainless steel compartmentalized plate…think frozen dinner aluminum tray but not disposable. There is usually rice, flatbread, something with lots of sauce, dhaal (lentils), raita (yogurt with diced vegetables), salad, and a dessert. It’s a nice opportunity to socialize but at the same time, it’s hard not to associate in my mind a different setting where everyone’s lining up for food with tray in hand…

As for snack, it struck me as amusing first time I heard it (I had a image of second breakfast from Lord of the Rings in my head) but it actually makes sense. Most of my coworkers in the Pune office work late to accommodate for the time zone difference with the Toronto office. Of course we don’t want everyone distracted by hunger, don’t we? There’s more variety with the snacks. A couple of days ago, we had steamed rice cakes served with a lentil sauce. I like the texture of the rice cake and according to my coworkers, they were excellent too. However, we don’t always have such good luck. There would be times when practically every one at the office would take one look at the food and turn away. Yesterday, for example, we were served rice flakes. The terrace was almost empty because nobody really wanted to eat it! Other times, the snack would be some kind of deep fried items. Those I avoid.

In addition to the catered meals, my coworkers also bring sweets to the office all the time. It’s perfect chance for me to sample many varieties of traditional indian sweets. I had these orange laddoo today. Laddoo is a generic term for a little ball. These laddoo are made with couscous held together with lots of syrup. I also had malai. They are cakes made with grated chickpeas pressed with cream and lots of cardamom. I like it better than the laddoo.

Contributed by Candy.

You can see her original blog at :

http://wscwong.blogs.friendster.com/dessert_by_candy/india/index.html

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