Day 10 - food glorious food

I think if I were in India any longer I'd end up looking like this:



Today for breakfast Robin and I went to a shop on Residency road called The Juice Junction. They do the best grilled sandwiches here. There is not meat on them, all veg and they are so delicious, makes you realise you dont actually need meat on everything. In fact you would swear there is meat on it because it is so filling. I washed it down with a watermelon juice and all up it was about an aussie buck.

After work I went on my usual walk, I had plans to go to National Market again (which is where I went yesterday) and then I'm finally going to check out Commercial St. While I was walking around I stumbled across the Lalbagh Botanical Garden which happens to be another spot I'd been meaning to check out...

By now I was busting for a leak, there are hardly any toilets in this city, no wonder everyone is doing it on the side of the street... I eventually found a "pay to use" dunny inside the botanical gardens. They were very modern facilities, with a bucket and running tap to use for the flush. Good value!

The botanical gardens were quite boring, It's one of the main attractions in the "Garden City" which to the garden enthusiast it is probably really exciting to see all the flowers and trees and birds and all that...... I checked out the flower clock and promptly went for the exit.



The Flower Clock - Lalbagh Botanical Gardens

After that I was pretty hungry for lunch, and I noticed a hotel doing a buffet lunch for outrageously cheap prices so thought I'd check that out...
It was very disappointing, the service and the place itself was great, but the food was terrible. And Im not being fussy - they couldn't even cook rice, the rice was hard and crunchy, and the curries were watery and just really bad. So if anyone reading this is going to Bangalore, don't bother doing the buffet at "Oceanic" on Mission Road.


I thought I'd go to Commercial St now because it was getting late-ish and it was raining (I was walking in the rain most of the afternoon - its been raining every afternoon since the weekend)
Got an auto - it was 80 rupees which I know is double what it should have been - but still 2 aussie bucks is still cheap for the convenience

Commercial St was a lot bigger than I expected, heaps more shops than on Brigade Road. It was mostly clothes shopping, so I wasn't really in the mood to buy any more clothes but it was still worth a look. I didn't buy anything but I did stumble across a KFC in the middle of it all, and I thought I may as well try the KFC here as per my quest to try all of the western fast food joints in India.

I bought a Zinger burger and chips - it was pretty cheap (compared to Aus) the whole thing came to about 3 aussie bucks. It looked something like this:


The chips were just like McDonalds chips - not the thick chips with the seasoning that we get in Oz... and the burger was terrible... The chicken was really thin and there was no lettuce... Anyway I didn't eat it because you'd be crazy to be in India and live on this but it was worth a try.

So my quest for comparing India fast food with Australia fast food so far is as follows

Australia has better:
Pizza Hut
KFC
Subway

Bangalore has better:
Dominos

I'll have to try McDonalds before I go, but I'm not looking forward to it...

So after looking around Commercial St for a while I decided to go back to National Market at Majestic. Got another auto back to the area (another 80 rs). National Market is fun, its my kind of place because its mostly electronics and very very cheap (but not authentic) DVDs and CDs. I had a look around, and thought it would be great to have something like this in Australia... but I didn't buy any movies because of the whole piracy thing.

Once I got tired of all of that I thought I needed to have a really good authentic Indian meal for dinner as I felt ashamed for buying KFC earlier. Satish had recommended a restaurant called "Bheemas" which is located on Church st just off Brigade Road.

I got an auto back to my hotel room first so I could freshen up, on the way back we drove past a film set, they were filming a local bollywood movie I guess. There were heaps of crowds watching and the auto driver was really excited. I guess the actor may have been a big name here or something. I didn't get a chance to get a photo unfortunately but it was cool to see.

Anyway, got to the apartment, and then headed to Bheemas. By now it was about 7pm which is pretty late, but I plan to make the most of the nights in my last few days here.

Wow this food was amazing. I had a butter chicken and it was definately the best Butter Chicken i've ever had. It was a little spicy too which in Australia butter chicken is always the mild dish. I had 2 bourbons (found a cheap one called Signature and it is quite good) a bottle of water, naan bread and the curry and the total was just 10 aussie bucks. The service at this place was really good too, and the restaurant is huge so there are plenty of tables to choose from. But the food is sooooooo good!! Definately the best meal I've had so far.

So I managed to waddle back to the apartment on a full stomach. Watched some telly (not much on tonight!!) and that was it.

So how was your day?