Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Seafood extravaganza

I'd had enough of this emotional crap from people around and wanted a change. And guess where I headed to? Holiday.... Himalayas....Home..... ???

Nah. It had to be food.... silly.

A dear friend has an exclusive membership with the Taj, which allows him a fancy discount on the buffet there. He invited all of us (4 devils) to the Taj (the one near Dhaula Kuan) for a lavish lunch. Without sparing a thought, me and J picked our best summer T-shirts and slim fit jeans and headed on for the culinary fair. Other two chaps were to join us at the venue itself.

Me and J believe that we have tasted most of the non-veg delicacies and well... we were in for some shock. We met up with the other two chaps in the hotel lobby and were pretty pleased by the ambience. That place had more foreigners than our desi crowd. And somewhere the moronic Indian in me swelled with pride. We chose a cushy corner near the swimming pool.

We headed for the starters. Other two chaps wasted their time in trying the soups, while me and J picked up the delicious tikkas. After all, chicken is more healthy than the vegetable stock... ain’t it? :-P

After gulping down at east 5-6 pieces of chicken and fish tikkas, we headed to the main course. Any satiated person would have not touched the main course .... but me and J are exceptions.
We walked around the buffet table to have a look at the offerings. They were serving chicken curry, smoked salmon, amritsari fish, squids and prawns. Hang on… did I say squids. Now that was one creature I hadn’t chewed. Me and J looked at each other and picked up four pieces of squids each. We weren’t too sure if we would like it, so we filled our plates with some portions of chicken stuff also.

One back to the table, we were wondering as to how to go about with this squidy thing. I had seen a squid earlier also in college. But, that time I was dissecting formalin soaked squid. This time I was chewing a baked squid.

For those who are not sure what a squid looks likes, let me explain about it. A squid is a quiet sea creature, white, of the size of a human fist, has a cylindrical body and has tentacles for its head.

I picked up the fork and knife and tried to cut into the squid. I tried gently, but it didn’t work. Then I was rather too hard with the culinary utensils and lo… the squid got dissected in to two. I picked up the first piece, it was hard to chew, rather very difficult to chew. It was tasteless, except the juicy sea weeds that had been baked in it and was is seemed like a plastic inside my mouth. Even after baking, the squid’s skin had not become soft. It was rather too tough to chew. I munched it for next five minutes but still couldn’t get to chew it probably. It seemed as if the squid was swimming in my mouth. I gulped it down my throat and drained it with a glass of water. I got to understand, seafood is not for me. I should rather stick to the red and white meat but not sea food. No more seafood adventures.

Monday, March 3, 2008

boulevard of broken dreams

Many a dreams shattered,
Many misconceptions cleared,
What remains is silence,
--- complete silene---
And aloofness,
For what we thought belonged to us,
Was a mirage of someboy's aspirations,
And now we stand alone,
Deserted, shunned and stunned...