The Well-Fed Bong

Everyone already knows this, but India is truly the place for vegetarian food. The thing about veggie food in India is, its not the meatless version of something. This is a true, first class treatement of vegetables that one would find difficult to introduce meat into. This is specially true of veggie dishes from people who are not traditionally vegetarian, such as Bengalis. When they leave the meat out of something, there is good reason for it. This trip to India, I ate far more Bengali vegetarian food than I normally would. Courtesy a veggie girlfriend, my family shifted the balance of meals from multiple fish types to multiple veggies, including many of my hot favorites - Kanchkolar Kofta, Potoler Dalna , Chocchori. Then there were all those Gujarati favorites that I indulged in - Muthia, Dhokla, Khandvi, Sweet dal, Kadhi - little wonder that I'm becoming fatter.

The Michelin Guide is the most famous of restaurant guides. Till recently, however, Michelin stars weren't available to American chefs; not having never set up an office across the pond, the Michelin guide kept its opinions of American eateries to itself. That changed yesterday, when Michelin announced its ratings for New York - the first American city to be so listed. 507 restaurants made it to the list while 39 recevied at least one star, catapulting New York to the top of the list of food cities - nearly. Paris still beat it handily with 70 starred restaurants, but what do the French know of food anyway? Michelin is not the lone star in the world. Gault-Millau (thats Go-Me-oh to you illiterates) - has its own 20-point rating system, and is considered influential enough to that a downgrade supposedly led to the suicide of superchef Bernard Loiseau. However, Gault-Millau does not deign to step out of continental Europe (even London isn't considered worth it). New York has lo...

Texas is barbecue land, so of course I had to go chasing down some of the real stuff. My first experience of Texas barbecue started with Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse in Dallas, which I was told was famous. One of the eight branches of Sonny Bryan wasn't too far from the office, so I headed there on a hot summer's day. It turned out to be inside a strip mall, looking all the world like takeaway Chinese. The stories on the wall were entertaining but, unfortunately, the barbecue was not much better than ... well ... takeaway Chinese. In short, a washout. I went a few weeks later to Tioga, TX where a Sonny Bryant prodigal started Clark's; the resut is much the same. I discover later that Sonny Bryant is no small operation - its a franchise chain with a CEO. First a bit about Texas barbecue. It's not the regular backyard stuff - here things are very slowly cooked over woodsmoke heat in massive pits. The traditional way is to start with raw meat that's dry-rubbed wi...