Hey Mr Tally Man, Tally Me Banana…

Yes I’m talking about food again. I know that it seems to be a recurring theme, but hey – I like to eat. And to cook, so it’s always interesting to try out local foods and try and figure what’s in them. A recent adventure revealed few clues as to the contents of most of the dishes we were eating, but the abundance of chilli peppers and spices were not shy in revealing themselves. Holger took a colleague and his wife, plus Mum and I out to dinner at Samys, an Indian restaurant which he had visited for his work a while ago. The restaurant is located in an old colonial building left behind by the British. It’s a large white plastered place, with a covered veranda on all sides to keep the rooms cool during the day. Round tables had been crammed into the large interior dining room and lined the veranda outside. Having been buffeted by the heat and noise when we walked in, I made sure the waiter seated us outside where we would at least have a chance to hear each other talk and hopefully catch a breeze to cool off our chilli-induced sweat.
Like many Indian restaurants, the meal started with awaiter slapping down a large square piece of banana leaf on the table in front of us. This was our plate. As soon as he stepped back a swarm of green and white uniformed waiters swooped down on us, each with a steaming pot of some mysterious concoction. After barking “lamb!, prawn!, fish! calamari! potato!” they would barely wait for a nod of agreement before placing their offerings, side by side, on our leaves. In no time at all we had a colourful collection of dishes in front of us, accompanied by pickled cabbage, cucumber salad, poppadom and garlic naan bread. Let the feast begin!
This may be a good time to explain that I am not into spicy food. I used to make a mean Mexican chilli at university but I’ve gotten out of the habit, and curries were never my thing. However we were all keen to give it a go and Holger’s taste buds have apparently been galvanised by the local food he eats at work every day. There’s no doubt that he certainly sweats with the, how can I say this nicely, aromatic pungence of someone who enjoys a nice garlicky chilli Monday to Friday every week. We all tucked in and it was tasty. Mum was able to get through most of hers, and our guests did too (he was a vegetarian so I enviously watched him scoff a plate of deepfried cauliflower as I downed buckets of water to cool off my fiery tongue). I did my best and as far as Indian food goes, I’d have to say it was better than any I’d had.
We managed to take Mum out to quite a few restaurants during her trip, each featuring a different style of food. One thing you can certainly say about eating out here – it’s never boring!