A Different Drummer

I'm finishing my India time as innapropriately as possible - a dinner, alone, in an expensive upper class Chinese restaurant - laptop on table and all. In one of the worlds most crowded, exciting, cheap, deliciously fooded countries, a lonely expensive Chinese dinner sounds a bit strange - but I promise, theres a reason to it all....

I have been getting Egypt flashbacks all throughout these three weeks in India - the crowds and the noise, the pollution and the chaotic traffic, the incredible cheapness of everything, the confronting poverty, the enthusiasm and vibrancy of street life - but I think, in this Chinese restaurant, I am feeling it the most.

I am staying in a Youth Hostel in an area called Chanakya Puri, which seems to be the most affluent of Delhi's suburbs. Big wide tree lined streets, filled with shiny new Landcruisers being constantly washed and polished by the doormen of each massive villa. I could hit the US Embassy with a stones throw from my bedroom window, but I wouldnt want to try it, because the US embassy here is one fortified bad boy of a building - even more heavily guarded and walled/fenced/protected by a "Star Wars" style missile defense system than the US Embassy in Cairo, which I would have imagined to be under much more of a threat.

Anyhow, Chanakya Puri looks to be home to cashed up expats, Embassies and ambassadors houses, and the rich, internationally mobile minority of Delhi's population. In short, it looks and feels like a photocopy of Maadi, where I spent most of my time in Cairo. And the Chinese restaurant here is frighteningly identical to its Maadi counterpart.

Lets run thought the checklist. Locals running the place looking a bit silly dressed up in "traditional" Chinese clothing? Check. Neither Egypt nor India seem to have a large enough Chinese population to adequately staff their restaurants. That, however, is no excuse for Indians or Egyptians to hang plastic Samurai swords from the belts of their crappy white judo uniform pants.

Most prominent external visual advertising being that the place sells "Beer and Whisky"? Check. It seems that in the less alcoholic countries, Chinese restaurants are proud to flaunt their devious booze selling ways.

"Authentic" Chinese interior design let down by plastering of local religious icons over the walls? Check. When you go to all the trouble of buying the red paper lanterns, dragon statues and giant smiling buddha decor, why bust it all up by hanging posters of Mecca, scrolls of Koranic script or paintings of Ganesh or Krishna over the place. It just messes with the continuity, although it does add a sweet civilisational meeting place feeling (which I doubt was the intention).

Now, lets go through the clientele, table by table.

- Older English/American/White Expat workers? Check. Making stupid unnessecary requests of the waiters? Check ("What! Your mean you cant make me a plate of chips/grits/bacon sandwich/succotash?").

- Travelling Asian businessmen, looking a bit lost and confused, but happy to eating something vaguely familiar? Check. Getting surpised by the fact that no-one in the whole place understands Mandarin? Check.

- Rich local businessmen, ordering spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken, and ice cream for dessert? Check. Have they ordered/bought their own bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label to their table? Check.

- Teenage kids of the local moneyed families, dressed to impress? Check. Less interested in the food than in frantically typing away text messages on their top of the line mobile phones? Check.

And then, providing the consistency of the observer, there is me, dining away at both places. For the same reasons too - after a while, even the most diverse, delicious local food can become a bit tiring. I've eaten plenty of wonderful Indian food over the last three weeks, but after a while, you need to go back to something familiar. You also get tired of eating from street stalls, and the inevitable gastrointestinal consequences that follow.

So, Chinese predictability and reliability it is. Having spent the last few days in Goa, the food has been incredible - tons of wonderful fresh fish, grilled and curried to perfection, and the traditional Goan "vindaloo" dish, which is incredible, and completely misunderstood by the "Vindaloo" served up in western countries, where Vindaloo is basically nothing more than the code word for "really hot".

I have plenty to write about the rest of India, but it will have to wait for another time. My chicken sweetcorn soup has just arrived, and I'm sure that typing while eating would offend my Chinese hosts.