It's been a busy couple of weeks for Balki.
He helped us unpack into a storage unit when our first apartment fell through.
He battled deep footprints in the Toronto snow.
He learned how to do stairs on the most terrifying flight there is.
And he was exhausted after moving into our new place.
It's a shame the store didn't have any big bones.
Of course there's more!
A little over a month ago, my girlfriend and I made a stop in London, Ontario. We were nearly short on the bill, but promised ourselves we'd go back and tip our excellent server.
Prince Albert's Diner by Slack pics on flickr
Yesterday we imported just about everything into Canada. Along the way, we made a stop at Prince Albert's Diner. I parked the U-Haul in the parking lot, walked directly into the counter and made a rare request:
So Ken, if by some chance you happen to read this one day, sorry about the delay!
"So let me get this straight...you guys all came from Chicago to get LA deep dish pizza?
We're pretty fortunate to have an adjacent team from the Chicago office working just 10 miles from us in California. Occasionally we get together for cross-team dinners. Monday was such an event. We chose BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse, known for their deep dish pizza.
"Really? You got that? It's a brewhouse for crying out loud!"
Monday also saw the addition of another member to our team. Five weeks in and we welcomed our first person in the QA role, Kurman. It wasn't long until a drinking competition broke out between he and I.
In addition to the locally-famous pizza, BJ's is also known for its micro-brewed beer. My interest was piqued by a sold-out micro-brew root beer initially, but I ended up following Kurman's lead with a series of lemonades. Strawberry Lemonades, of course.
After just four, I was declared the winner.
LA Lesson #1 Never hesitate on freshly-squeezed strawberry lemonade.
Each and every weekday at TWU, we undergrads have the privilege of catered lunch. It's generally colorful, delicious, and at times predictable.
Wednesday is the only meat-day. There is usually one dish in the buffet-style line toward the end with chicken. Most days have a specific order to the buffet:
Occasionally we have lunchtime sessions by the trainers. It's on such days that we tend to eat around circular tables.
It was requested this picture be taken in honor of the number of sweets present at this table: 24.
"You're only supposed to take one!"
Note It's not really a requirement to only take 1 sweet.
Note Sweets here are way sweeter than anything I've ever tasted.
There continues to be surprising interest in the food here from the West. I'm happy to report here on a few more things I've discovered.
New for me during this trip is eating breakfast. While it's often too early for me to have something spicy, I make sure to always get juice. The best mixed fruit juice I've ever had is here. The mango juice is quite good as well, and this is the first time I've tasted the extra-sweet litchi.
Lunch is something different every day, with a common element of laughter. In the US we have Chipotle, Qdoba, and the like everywhere. What makes this important? A burrito like this is a common meal.
We don't have tortillas here, but we often have chapati. Chapati is like a tortilla made of wheat. Rice is also served, so I tend to make mini burritos. This always encourages stares and inspires laughter with a quote.
"What you're doing there...with the rice and chapati, is just too weird. Why on earth would you have rice and bread? Nobody does that."Which is a fair point. They are both of the same food group. Unsurprisingly, I'm not the only American to be pulling this maneuver.
For dinner during last night's Pecha Kucha, we ordered some excellent wraps from Kaarti Zone. The wraps came in a box in several types. I went for paneer last night, which is supposedly similar to cottage cheese (though it doesn't taste it). It was so good that some of us ordered it again tonight. I went with the also-delicious chicken.
Fun Fact paneer is completely lacto-vegetarian (no eggs).
In the giant list of things I was tipped-off about when making my way to India, one of the more surprising was pizza. At home, pizza is one of the cheapest ways to eat out. Here, pizza is like a delicacy -- it costs almost as much as in the US (after converting!). The sizes are also much smaller. A large here is about at medium at home.
Exactly who you'd expect in the US:
Not being fond of The Hut, and not wanting to deal with a phone order, we opted for Domino's online ordering on Thursday night. Or tried to.
I guess ordering online has a fraud problem here? I can't come up with any other explanation for why I need to type in a phone number and wait for a text with my "happiness code" before I can actually order. I also can't come up with a reason for why their website is written in Flex and generally doesn't work. We ended up calling to place an order after waiting far too long for a happiness code. Moments after the order was complete, our happiness code had been delivered.
The pizza is pretty good, but it doesn't really taste like the stuff at home. When compared to everything else, it's hard to believe a large is worth Rs. 350-400, but hey, who am I to compare markets?
For the ever-curious, I had a cheese.
The majority of what I'm eating here has been paid for by the company. For the most part, we're talking about quite delicious food that is very fresh. This post is instead about the junk food. If Coke and Pepsi are a good barometer, and in my opinion they absolutely are, preservatives don't seem to exist here.
The prices are ridiculously cheap on their own. Couple that with the exchange rate I got upon arrival was $1 = Rs. 46.4, and these prices are shockingly low. Junk food felt like a good vehicle for comparison to the American market.
12 Tiger Gluclose Biscuits | (Rs. 4 = $0.0862)
Kinley 1L Bottled Water by Coca-Cola | (Rs. 15 = $0.323)
Thums Up 1L Cola by Coca-Cola | (Rs. 22 = $0.474)
Lay's "American Style" Cream & Onion Chips | (Rs. 20 = $0.431)
Note these prices hold for similar products, so a 1L Coke, Pepsi, or Sprite all cost about $0.47 in every place I've been. They taste a bit different too, actually using real sugar. In the first week, I've actually spent less than $3
One of the best things about this experience is the food. I haven't had anything from north India so far, but I've liked many of the southern dishes I have tried.
On the first day we were taken out for breakfast by the ThoughtWorks University staff to a very small restaurant down a very crowded street. At this place we tried two traditional Indian breakfast dishes.
Idli is a rather plain, soft, small cake made primarily of rice. Frankly, it isn't very good on its own and very much needs the accompanying sauces.
Masala Dosa has a much better texture. It reminds me more of a crepe, at least in terms of looks (I haven't actually had a crepe). Dosa is also made of rice, and ours came with spicy yellow potatoes in the middle. Spiciness for breakfast is new to me, but it's also very good.
The side items were the same for both dishes. I much preferred the mint chutney. The sambar was good as well, but not quite what I expected at this hour.
I'll definitely be on the lookout for good chutney back in the States.
Note the attributed photos aren't by anyone I know, I just found them on Flickr licensed under the creative commons because I hadn't taken any pictures myself.
