Food - driven culture!

This is how I call India! Everything is around the food here! You don’t know what to talk about – you can just start with “the best biryani I have ever had was at Hyderabad” and then it just goes on and on and on…! The first question I am being asked when someone meets me and realizes I stay here on my own is: “How do you manage with food? Do you cook or order? What do you eat?” Also, if you schedule a meeting with someone at 2 p.m. it is bound they will start the conversation with: “So, did you have your lunch already?” For me food has never been so important, I treated it more as “something that keeps me going” but after spending almost 6 months in India (!!) I have to admit I am becoming a bit of a foody! Luckily, we have a very nice canteen at the office, so I can easily have here my breakfast, lunch and even dinner if I stay longer at work!

Sometimes, when bored with canteen food we go out for lunch and during one of these lunches out I discovered a form of a very interesting “restaurants”. These are the places located at private houses, looking a bit dirty and not maintained properly, where you go and get the best home – made food ever! There is one of these places located very close to our office, the auntie (this is how we call the lady who owns the place and cooks there) always welcomes us with the smile, giving the full list of “day’s specials”. Great food, wonderful fish, prawns and chicken! If we feel like having lots of meat, this is where we go :) (At the canteen you will usually get only one non- vegetarian meal with some 2 sad pieces of chicken!) The food at auntie’s is obviously the cheapest ever! For Rs 100 (around 6 PLN) you can eat and eat and eat and eat…and she will keep bringing more! Yummy