Food

The campus guesthouse I'm staying at has a dining hall that serves breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner and it's busiest at lunch when people on campus come by, other than that its usually just me and two or three other people. The first few weeks, I enjoyed the food. Breakfast was toast, fruit, and coffee/tea, lunch was about two handfuls of rice, some daal and vegetable dish, and dinner was 2 or 3 rotis with a vegetable dish, maybe an omelette or egg curry, maybe some yoghurt. Slowly I realized the spice level of the food was not agreeing with my stomach. I could eat it, so my taste-buds could handle it, but I realized my stomach couldn't. Eventually I bought my own tub of granola (yay!) for breakfast and cut out the white bread, and after telling the kitchen staff about 6 or 7 times that the food was too spicy for me, I'm finally getting some vegetable dishes that are not spicy! It was a long battle, about 2 weeks, but now the head waiter knows when I come in to bring me something that's not spicy. Unfortunately today, the squash/potato dish was meant to be non spicy, butttt I think the kitchen staff used the same vegetables from the original dish and just added water to the sauce. So when I ate it, it was just as spicy, but the waiter was shocked when I said it was too spicy. oh well. I used to force myself to eat the spicy stuff, because I was starving and wanted to build up to being able to eat spicy food, but realized that's not helping the situation. The tea and coffee are too sweet, the coffee is just nescafe added to hot milk so I think I prefer the tea, which is pretty strong. The yoghurt is amazing, probably full fat, slightly tart and sweet, reminds me of Tart frozen yoghurt from yoghurtland! And the Ras Goola they have sometimes is really good, but I think its from a store. I think I'm officially sick of potatoes though.

I get plenty of fresh fruit from the stands outside the campus gate, but its the usual (bananas, apples, oranges, maybe sometimes pomegranites). Where are the mangos and guavas!!??

I've visited most of the stores right outside the gates of campus, and there's some pastry shops but the pastry/cakes are way too sweet for me, the frosting is too sugary and the cake is dry. I have enjoyed cookies though, Bourbon being my favorite (chocolate cookie sandwich with chocolate filling), and of course Digestive Biscuits (although not OG McVitie's) filled with fiber! I've also tried the traditional Bengali sweet known as "sandesh", which is pretty good, not overly sweet like other mitthai.

In MH, I got my fill of srikhand and gulab jamun and puri.

When I get out of Shibpur, I make sure to not eat Indian food. I've tried McDonalds (McVeggie + fries) which is pretty good, Subway (which is as amazing as in the states), Pizza Hut (which I don't eat at all in the US but its the closest to Gina's Pizza or Papa John's that I'm going to get), and try to have real brewed coffee when I can. I did eye a South Indian restaurant so will have a dosa next time I get a chance.

Can't wait for some rice, beans and plantains in Costa Rica!