Sunday, January 2, 2011

Missing Mumbai - especially a Masala Toast Sandwich

So I had to go to Delhi this week, and the whole journey was pretty eventful. It started with our train tickets being confirmed just 2 hours before the train was due to leave...except the agent failed to mention that the train was delayed by 7 hours! It was running late because of the Gujjar agitation (men were sitting on the line campaigning for a percentage of government jobs that had been promised to them to be honoured) and not only would the train be late, but it would be diverted too, extending a 15 hour journey into a 25 hour one...

I'd hoped that we'd leave Monday afternoon and reach Delhi at 8:30am on Tuesday as scheduled. This would allow me to get a train back on the same day and all would be well... Ha ha ha ha ha ha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (manic laughter)!

So we finally arrived at 1am on Wednesday morning (all of Tuesday was spent on the train). Then there were numerous problems with finding a place to stay, so I didn't get to sleep until 6am! At 10am we left the guesthouse to go to the government office for my work and after a few hours of waiting and form filling, it was my turn. I spoke to the man for just a few minutes, gave him the letter from the office in Mumbai and he said he'd need to check my file and I should wait.

This was different, as most of the other 200 or so people who'd visited the office we're told to come back another day with the correct documents or were told to come back after 5pm to collect the reply to give to their local government office. This was at 1:30pm... and I waited... and I waited... and the office was freezing cold... and I waited... and I waited... and I fed a sandwich to a monkey... and I waited... and I waited... and then everyone else started to arrive at 4.30pm to collect their response... and I waited and finally at around 5.30pm I was handed a letter just like everyone else!

It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo frustrating! I could have gone back to my warm room and slept for 3 hours! Anyway, with work over and no train back for several days, I had no option to be a tourist and eat lots of yummy food :D

Being tourists we visited Connaught Place, India Gate, Akshardham temple and the National Museum. And of course we rode the Metro (clean, cheap, quick but crowded) and argued with rickshaw-wallahs over prices (fun, but really cold way to travel). We wrapped up warm, and even bought gloves because it was that cold!




There was loads of yummy food to choose from like Rajma Chawal, Chole Bathura, Aloo Paratha. The street food was good too... Aloo Tikki, Pani Puri, Peanuts & Channa & fresh Popcorn.

We moved hotel and stayed at a really nice place (with really thick blankets), called Sagar Palace Hotel, which is opposite Rajendra Place Metro Station. They were really friendly and made us some really yummy Aloo Paratha.

Another place that does really great food is right on Connaught Place. There's a restaurant called The Embassy who have a side window for snacks. We had the BIGGEST samosa ever and a cup of hot masala sweetcorn and both were just spot-on!

The only downer was we missed Mumbai's fabulous street foods... there's no Pav Bhaji or Vada Pav or Masala Toast Sandwiches in Delhi! The first food we ate when we got back to Mumbai, was Masala Toast sandwich! They're warm and filling and easy to make too (although we got ours from the street vendor).

Masala Toast Sandwich

Sandwich Toaster

Bread
Butter
Tomato
Onion
Capsicum
Shredded Cabbage (Optional)
Aloo Bhaji (see my Misal Pav blog entry for recipe - you can add some extra mashed peas to make it extra yummy)
Sandwich or Chaat Masala

Optional extras to sprinkle on top
Nylon Sev
Grated Cheese (finely grated)

It's a toasted sandwich...I'm sure you can work it out for yourself!
In Mumbai, the grated cheese doesn't go in the sandwich as a filling, instead it gets packed on top once the sandwich is cooked :D

Eat hot!