One Fleeting Moment

Last week when we had a little something to celebrate, we headed out to Rockville to our favorite Indian restaurant. The standard underwhelming fare of green, white and orange gloop slathered curries usually means that Indian never really counts as a dining out option for us. However, Bomby Bistro is different. It is the original flagship restaurant of the owners of Indique and Indique Heights. If parking in Cleveland Park were not such a nuisance we would be headed more often to Indique. Indique Heights on the other hand has good parking but tends to be a hit or miss sort of place.

But Bombay Bistro is just perfect. The chicken dosa (with a dry, highly spiced ground chicken filling) alone is worth the trip to this small restuarant tucked away next to a organic dry cleaning shop in the middle of a residential zone in Rockville. The place is packed with regulars even on a weekday evening (usually a good sign) and they don't take reservations, so plan on waiting for a while.


Puritans might turn up there noses at the slighlty unorthodox version of kathi roll served here. It tends to fall apart but it tastes great so I am not complaining. The goat nuggets in the goat curry were a little tough during one visit but the lamb has always been impeccable. The condiments that usually come out with your order have a certain home cooked feel to it. The sambar that came with my chicken dosa tasted was soupy mess of onions, carrots and squash with just the right amount of sambar masala.

During our last visit, we had some tummy real estate left over so we shared the gulab jamun with ice cream. A very common combination but for the dollop of a fig/apricot/orange? (not sure) sauce on the side. It is these little touches and the great service that make this place such a delight. So if you have Indian on your mind and would not mind a trek to the burbs, head to Bombay Bistro.

Labels: Food

Thanks to all the hoopla about the impending snow storm, my Washington Post magazine turned up at my door step a day early. Now, reading the Date Lab section of the said magazine on a Saturday morning, bleary eyed, in my pyajamas, with a cup of coffee, way before the Boy wakes up is one of life's many pleasures.

But, sadly, the same ritual repeated on a Friday morning (even one which holds out the promise of a snow holiday) does not provide the requisite amount of satisfaction. Gah!

And now my Saturday morning is ruined too.

Half a half full of all things four wheeled and green - check.
Shiny concept cars - check.
Cooler versions of your five year old Corolla -check.

Washington DC Auto Show done-check.

On to the dinner-Ethiopian at Etete. The location was chosen primarily for its proximity to the convention center and the fact that it has been getting consistent rave reviews for quite sometime now. And then, Ethiopian food encourages a primal food orgy, best enjoyed with a group of friends who don't think twice about dunking into a communal plate and sopping up fiery sauces with bits of spongy injera.

We arrived a little after 9:30 pm and were promptly seated. Beware! By suburban standards this is a tiny place and they don't take reservations. So being late probably helped us get seating quickly. The Boy and I started off with some Ethiopian tea to warm ourselves up. I would highly recommend the tea to anyone who loves the idea of masala chai but finds most restaurant versions either too milky or cloyingly sweet.

The Boy settled for his standard-Doro Wat (the combination of a chicken leg with an boiled egg brings on the warm fuzzies for him) while I chose the vegetarian combination with fish. The others at the table ordered the spicy lamb stew and more of the Doro Wat and vegetarian combination. Since the food here comes out on one large plate, sharing and dipping into someone else's entree is okay. Infact, if you have problems with that you should probably stay clear of most Ethiopian food places. The Doro Wat and the lamb stew were better than most versions but it was the fried croaker with a squeeze of lemon that had all of us reaching out for more. And I am not even particularly fond of deep fried whole fish. The vegetables that came with the vegetarian combination were all uniquely seasoned...a big plus in my book. By the time we left at around 10:30 pm, we were stuffed to our gills and warm-a big help that one as outside the temperature was hovering in the teens.

Labels: Food

2009 will always be the year when yours truly forgot her blog, the year of half hearted posts and equally half hearted drafts, the year of could haves and should haves. Someday we will come back and update 2009 but for now we are all about 2010.

2010, at least the first half of it, will be all about "a dinner and a movie". Not our usual shovel-an-Italian-sandwich-and-polish-off-half-a-ginger-beer-at-Potbelly's-before-making-a-mad-dash-to-the-theatre thingie that the Boy and I are usually known for. And which was exactly how we watched "Avatar". No, 2010 will be about growing up and eating like adults...slowly, with a side of pleasant conversation while savoring every bite. Then gracefully walking into the theatre (without breaking into a sweat) and elegantly settling in for the evening's performance.

The first dinner and a movie night was rather casual. Dinner was Peruvian chicken at Sabroso Grill. If you have not heard of Peruvian chicken it's probably because you do not live within driving distance of D.C. or worse still...you live under a mossy rock somewhere deep in the jungles of Pandora. Sabroso Grill is where we go for our Peruvian chicken fix. The guys at the counter are pleasant, the chicken is always well spiced and they have yucca fries and plantains on the side.

The movie on the other hand was a mild disaster. AFI, Silver Spring was playing A Serious Man.

You know the movie with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.
Never heard of it, I see.
Doesn't ring a bell?
The Colin Firth movie is called A Single Man... really!

Unfortunately we figured out that we were in the wrong movie after the opening credits rolled by. The dark and broody Yiddish prologue did seem a little out of place and weshould have left right after that prologue instead of struggling through this plodding, gut wrenching, despair laden tale of a physics professor set in a bleak 70's landscape. Though the movie had its lighter moments there was no escaping from the crushing self awareness of having made a boo-boo. On the other hand, I now have a shiny, new word in my vocabulary-dybbuk.

Labels: Food

Since this has been the year of confronting one's fears, we decided to finally have turkey for Thanksgiving this year. Besides with a guest list of fifteen adults and four children it seemed the more sensible thing to do. So here's our kosher bird from Trader Joe's slathered with homemade Italian dressing on its way to the refrigerator on Wednesday.

And here's the same bird on Thursday evening after spending a few toasty hours in the oven. A Youtube tutorial made carving a cinch. The verdict-the turkey was good as far as turkeys go but I still prefer chicken.


And here's the rest of the spread. Brussel sprouts, spicy cornbread, black bean and quinoa salad, a southwestern slaw and sweet potato mush. Yes, I completely forgot the cranberry sauce and yes, nearly a year later our dining room still looks sort of bare.


Missing in action- the desserts. We forgot to take pictures of the apple cake and banana walnut bread as we were too engrossed in our game of dumb charades. The apple cake recipe came from this book while the banana bread is my version of this recipe where I get to swap out the chocolate chips with walnuts.

Labels: Food, Thanksgiving

I have been feeling slightly under the weather off late and craving the hot, brothy soup that was once a childhood comfort food. One phone call and a few minutes at the stove later, I now have a vat of my mom's tomato soup to chug my way through.

So if you are feeling the chill, take half a dozen medium sized tomatoes, a small onion, a knob of fresh ginger, a large clove of garlic (optional) and give the veggies a few nice hacks with your trusty knife. Add four to five cloves, a bay leaf or two and two cups of water to the veggies and pressure cook the heck out of them. Run the resulting pulpy mess through a sieve, season with salt and pepper, add a dollop of butter and enjoy. For a thicker consistency, gently reheat the soup with some cornstarch slurry.

Labels: Food

There are somethings in life that just elude me. I have come to accept the fact that large water bodies and I do not get along. If I accidentally find myself in one, I will sink. Never mind what the laws of phsyics and the swimming instructor have to say on the matter. I will not float, I do not float. I will sunk to the bottom of the pool like a sack of potatoes and horrible, salty, hyper chlorinated water will enter my orifices and make me rather unhappy. I do understand that this inability to prosper and propel forward in all masses aquatic might become a question of life or death someday, but for now its just means that I am not too enthusiastic about heading to the beach. I can live with that.

Then there is the matter of card games. I don't get it. I simply cannot remember how a deck of cards is organised. I was the kid who could never figure out the solution to all those pesky probability problems involving cards. Luckily, Probability 101 is long gone and the way I look at it...what are the chances that my survival might depend on my ability to know a queen of something from a jack of something else? Not much, right. Unless I suddenly head off to Reno for a life of reckless gambling. And the probability of that happening is infinitesimal compared to the probability of me unexpectedly taking off for Ocean City. So there...peace.

But my absolute lack of understanding of timesheets does bung a spanner into my life every other week. I am the bane of all office managers and HR people. I am the person who has at least one mistake in her timecard, everytime-without fail. And if I am really, really good then it will be months before the bean counters in a distant office figure out that I have used the wrong billing codes for months!! Audits will be done and long letters will have to be written and signed before every wrongfully assigned penny is sent to its proper electronic ledger. However, unlike the previous can't dos which I have made peace with, I still have hope for my timecards.

A nagging cough and persistent showers has meant that I have had to stay indoors, consume steaming cups of cha and catch up with my reading. Three down and one more to go before the vacation officially ends.

Indian television sucks - there is no other way of putting it. Every news channel seems like an Indian language reincarnation of Fox News.

No more pictures to post, the camera has taken a vacation too.

And I now have an accent- none of the customer service reps seem to get what I am blathering about. Five excuse mes, three repetitions and some garbled Hindi has usually done the trick so far. Apparently, my Hindi proficiency has also gone down the drain.