Ticket to US of A

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost (The Road not Taken)

Centuries ago man used to travel barefoot across mountains and rivers in search of greener pastures. No one literally cared which direction they were travelling. Turn of civilized era, man started to make communities and that which were spread across places. These communities then turned into larger civilizations and finally became countries depending on the color or behavioral patterns of people. Now while all this was happening, man used to travel across to each others territory often. Initially they used to do it on foot across mountains, hard terrains and rivers; over a period of time they found that predefined routes across territories would allow other beings of the same clan to use it to travel on the same route. These came to be known as Roads. Human society has evolved so much over time that, we now have roads just about everywhere. Roads criss cross under and over each other as if they are strings of a kite as seen in our kite festivals.

Am I writing about the Transport system of countries? No, Now here goes the actual story...

Going to the Niagara falls is something people dream of and is often a one time affair in a life time. I have been fortunate enough to visit the place twice now. This story begins with a trip to Niagara falls, guess what; we decided to travel 700 Kilometers in a rented car this time, unlike last time when we took a packaged tour. Since we are new to these roads, we took along a GPS(Global positioning system) with us. The technology impressed us as it guided us into the smallest of lanes with very high precision. It seemed as if somebody up there is watching us all the time. The system had a lady voice in it.

Have you ever wondered why all announcements across a variety of places are having female voices? Be it airports, railway stations and now GPS :-). Is that because males are not good announcers? I don't know, I never understood though. May be you can help me.

So continuing on the journey... Everything was real pleasant till we reached a place called Ogdensburg, a border town between the Unites States of America and Canada. We could see the big bridge over the Saint Laurence River. We jumped in joy inside the car(excluding Ravi, who was driving). We took pictures and video. The GPS lady who was pretty much in silence all the while, suddenly asked us to take a left turn and we did. Little did we know, that left turn is going to cost us so dearly.

After a smooth ride for 2-3 minutes, we saw that the bridge that we saw far is right in front of us and the road was leading us straight into it. We still believed the GPS and drove right into it. The bridge had a rough patch over it, I guess to avoid people over speeding and it said "MAX 30 km/hr". It was a pleasant drive over the bridge, but what we saw after crossing the bridge surely had everyone thinking. It said "Welcome to New york".

My heart started to pound at that because we all know how messy it can be at borders with immigration. We thought of taking the reverse gear but on enquiry it was told that if we did a return from that point, border control from US will follow us and catch us. Don't know for what though. So now we had to cross into US immigration and let them know our story and that was the only hope for return. Unfortunately, none among the group of 5 had their travel documents with us. The only hope is if we find a gentle officer and let him know our sad story.

There was a big queue of cars in front of us adding agony to our woes. Finally after an hours' wait it was our turn to go in, we pulled the car in front of the officer who asked to show us the documents.
"Officer, We are in trouble" Said one among us.

Now as it was uttered, the officer put her hand on her revolver. What a terrifying sight that was. May be the usage of the words was wrong; we realized.

However we managed to tell her our story, she asked us to pull up aside and assigned another officer to the case. The officer gave a smile to us. I could see his sharp teeth from one corner, it kind of had a spectacular sharpness and glow that I had not seen before. "Is he a Dracula or something?" I wondered.

The next 3 hours were a collection of very tense/terrifying moments. I don't think I can forget that anytime soon. The guy asked all kind of questions, individually to each of us to check if the story versions from each match or not. We overheard another officer telling him in his ear "If I were you, I would have taken them into custody".

Anyways after all that interrogation session, the officer kind of finally believed us that we were tourists who had really lost our way into the US. He took our finger prints and photos and officially rejected us entry into US. It had to be done because the other task on our hand now was to tell Canadian immigration when we go back that we had come from Canada only. Well, all was done and he gave us the rejection letters and asked us to show it at the Canadian immigration. He led us to our car. He told us that this rejection would not stop us from travelling to the US if we want anytime. But we will have to mention the same anytime we are applying for a US Visa. As he said the last line he gave us a smile. I could distinctly see his sharp teeth shining. Did he drink any one's blood? I don't think so. May be we were few of those lucky ones.

The Canadian immigration on the other side were softer on us. Since we had the rejection letters with us, we could not have come from anywhere else than Canada then. The lady advised us to keep our travel documents with us in such trips, being non-residents. We thanked her and our stars and finally came out un-hurt and free back into Canada.

Although this experience took a bit of sheen of the Niagara trip, but the magnificence of Niagara took over it and end of the day, it really was a trip worth travelling.

In the hindsight, everything is funny, but imagine if the officer had listened to his friend; I would have had another Close encounter of the third kind. May be I would have got something new to write then "Food in Jail - Good or Bad", provided they give me access to this blog site then.

Gastronomic Journey - Montreal

Please!! And I mean it; Please do not be fooled by the picture shown above. I did not make any of them. I know people sometimes can go the extremes with what I can do, but for God's sake I did not make any of it. I mean look at it, there is vegetarian biriyani, palak paneer, butter chicken and don't know the rest. I can take any kind of allegation but this one, I mean do you really think I can make that?? pffff

So its been close to 18 months in Montreal and according to reports coming in, my gastronomic journey has not added even a kilo of weight extra to my body from what it was when I landed here. Now is this the problem of the food I ate or it is the way the food gets settled in my body..hmm a tricky question indeed.

At the very onset of the prospect of cooking, I must admit that there was a lot of excitement attached to it. We always think that we could at least by luck end up making things that at least look like the picture above but then over time it fizzles to the point where you say; "Is there anything to eat today?" :-)

I will not say that I am getting sick of eating the sambhar, dal and rice everyday, because I will be in trouble if I said that and I think that my room mates have are slightly bigger build than me and I don't think I can take any aggression from them now.

Now coming to the reason I started the blog, I actually wanted to write my journey through the variety of cusines that I have had during my stay. It will not be huge, but local friends are suggesting new ones already.

Let me start of with apna Indian food in Montreal.
A variety of restaurants dot across various parts of Montreal which goes to prove that Indian food is much liked by Canadians, which is good to know. I myself have tried a whole lot of them and have concluded that these are a much more customized versions of Indian food than the actual ones. No offense to anyone, the food in most places are really good. But for example look at this following conversation.

Customer: "Can you get me 1 chicken tikka masala, a chicken vindaalooo and 4 naan's?"
Waiter : Of course Sir. Would you like it to me very spicy or medium spicy or mild?


Now I knew that every dish that we see in India has a flavor of its own and it does not get changed in spice to adjust to people. I mean quantity of spice defines the dish.
Anyways thats customization at its best. For us the smile on our face tells them all. Very spicy!!!

Overall I have liked the food and its not been very disappointing anytime. Some of the good ones are listed below.
1. Indian beau Village (http://indianbeauvillage.com)
2. Pushap (http://restomontreal.ca/portal/pushap/index.php?lang=en)
3. Maison Indian Curry (http://restomontreal.ca/portal/indian-curry-house/index.php?lang=en)

4. Le Taj (http://www.restaurantletaj.com/)
5. Buffet Maharaja (http://www.buffetmaharaja.com/)
6. Al Safa (Jean Talon)- Pakistani restaurant with the food being the same.


Chinese food







I must admit that I was really wary of the Chinese food before I actually gave it a try. Thanks to Charmaine, I have started to like it now. For beginners, the Chinese Dim sum would be an ideal start because it kind of gives you a peek into a variety of Chinese delicacies which you may not get if you are going for particular dishes. Dim sum is the name for a Chinese cuisine which involves a wide range of light dishes served alongside Chinese Tea. In India we tend to associate Chinese food only to noodles, which is not wrong to an extent but to be true Chinese food is much more than just noodles. I also tried Crab for the first time here.

The places I have visited in Montreal are the following

1. Kam Fung restaurant in China town.

2. Beijing restaurant in China town.

Lebanese food

Lebanese food comes very close to Indian food. I say this because they use a lot of spices in their food. The spices do match some of our flavours. They do use chilly sauces also like us. The Falafal(the spherical ball in the picture) is my favourite. The best ones in town is Restaurant Amir, which has a lot of branches in the city.

Italian food

The first thing that comes to mind with Italian food is Pasta. I have taken a particular liking for pasta these days. You can try a lot of flavours of pasta and with different fillings. One of my favourite places for pasta in Montreal is Pis Pistol on St Catherine street. Never tried the other delicacies in the restaurant but will make it a point to cover some more before I go back to India.

Peruvian food

I must admit that I never would have tried this one if Jean would not have invited me for a lunch. Thanks to her, I would never regret the experience. Peru has its own food history as evident from the time she spent to explain me about each of the dishes that came on the table. Peruvian food has a lot of similarities to food from Kerala. A lot of root delicacies are part of the cusine here as with kerala food too. Particularly tapioca(kappa) and sweet potato. Anways I enjoyed the experience.

Vietnamese food

Again an unknown commodity for me, Vietnamese turned out to be a surprise. I won't be able to name out the dishes here but it has a flavour that makes it different from even Chinese. The sweet sauce served with food was awesome. There are many Vietnamese restaurants in downtown montreal near China town. Thanks to Jean and team again for the treat.

We create all these inhibitions inside us that stop us from exploring the good unknown. Once you get to know it, it is bliss then. This is not just applicable to food alone.

I will make it a point to explore some more new cuisines before I go back. May be I will update this same blog then. I need to have a back pack to hold all these wonderful experiences with me.

Special Thanks to Jean, Charmaine and my friends here for making the whole experience, one of Gastronomic proportions.