EATS: Indian Guru

A while back, my family and I wanted to try something that we don't particularly like. Spicy food. We thought of going to an Indian restaurant for dinner, as spice is a trademark of Indian Cuisine. Not very far from our house is Indian Guru, a restaurant located in Vasastan, near Gustav Vasa Kyrka.

Me and my mom have a very negative relationship with spicy foods. My dad and sister on the other hand, love that kind of stuff.

We chose some papadam and aloo tikki as our starters. From my experience, I can describe papadam as a thin, flat, crispy sheet of goodness. I am a fan of salty foods, and the papadam was just that. It was served with a yogurt sauce with a hint of mango and mint blended into it. Unfortunately, the papadam was very oily when it got to our table, but that didn't hinder it's flavor. So far it was going great, I thought to myself.

Aloo tikki is a vegetarian dish mainly composed of potatoes. The faint taste of spice and coriander of the potato patties were accompanied by chutney. In comparison with the simple papadam, this to me ranks lower.

Papadam. (Ignore that glass of gin and tonic at the background)

For mains, my mom and I got the chicken tikka masala while my dad got the lamb khorma. Both were not spicy, which does not agree with the main reason on why we wanted to go to an Indian restaurant. The chicken tikka masala was very good. The chicken tasted like chicken (which is surprisingly very uncommon. I'm talking about you Chicken McNuggets) and the sauce brought life to it. My dad let me try the khorma, and it taste quite the same as the masala, but it's a bit sweeter and creamier. The cashews added more texture to the dish.

We had our main dishes with paneer and garlic naan bread.

(left to right) Chicken Tikka Masala and Lamb Khorma

Paneer naan is a thicker kind of bread, made out of cornflower and something called maida, with an application of cottage cheese and a little spreading of butter on top. The paneer naan was incredibly creamy, delightful and amazing. I told Shriya, one of the contributors of the blog that I have been hooked on this thing ever since. However, the garlic naan was only describable by three letters. Meh.

To conclude our dinner, we had some kulfi, Indian-style ice cream with bits of coconut, made with cardamom and surrounded by blobs of mango syrup. My initial reaction after having a spoonful of the kulfi was that it was canned. There's no way that the chef could design the ice cream like that if it's as hard as a rock. It basically tasted like sweetened water, regardless if with or without the mango blobs.

Kulfi

Overall, I had a very pleasant experience at Indian Guru, and I would be willing to try again with spicier food. Wish me luck that my tongue won't burn.

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More Amazing Stuff From Euan:

The Stockholm Concert Hall

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Lucky Numbers Around The World

You might think of numbers as that annoying thing you just see in Math class (might as well add in the variables, huh?), but some numbers actually mean more in different cultures. Read on to find out more!

• The Number 7. In Egyptian Mythology, the number 7 is a symbol for being whole and perfect. Examples of the number seven which is depicted in Egyptian Mythology are the seven zigzag lines that form a pool (representing water) and the Nebu (Egyptian symbol for gold) had seven spines on its underside.

A nebu which represents gold. from egyptianmyths.net

• The Number 8. Another one for Chinese culture, the way you say the number eight sounds like the Chinese word for rich or wealthy. Maybe this was the reason on why the 2008 Beijing Olympics started on 8.08 in the evening. And you know what date the opening ceremony was? 8-8-2008!

Beijing 2008 Logo from wikipedia.org

• The Number 4. In Ireland, the number 4 is lucky because of the "lucky four-leaf clover" superstition. 

• The Number 13. Although considered unlucky in many areas around the world, the number 13 is lucky in Italy. This is perhaps because of an Italian betting game called "Totocalcio" which was based off Italian Football. The person who manage to correctly bet on 13 results won the largest part of a jackpot. (from http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080816091700AAECP31)

• The Number 1. In Greek Mythology, the Number 1 symbolizes the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite and the Greek god Apollo, the god of truth and beauty.

And finally, the Number 10,000. Maybe not lucky for a culture, but lucky for me. My blog just reached 10,000 pageviews. Thank you to everyone who read my blog, and to the people who refreshed it (*wink*). Hope you will continue to support and read my blog, because there will surely be more to come this 2014. 

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Part 2 (Unlucky Numbers) Coming Out on Saturday!

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Travel To The Philippines! Part 3 - MANILA ITINERARY

I highly recommend seeing the first two parts of this series / segment. Click the links below!

• Part 1 - Tourist Spots   

•  Part 2 - Famous Food

Here is the long-awaited part three!

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I can honestly tell you that there are A LOT of awesome sights in Manila, but you might not want to stay in Manila for that long. You don't want to get drowned by the sea of people, don't you?

But seriously, if you are planning to travel in Manila, I recommend only travelling for one, to a maximum of two-three days. With this, I prepared some kind of "itinerary" that comprises some of the awesome spots you can see in Manila!

• Rizal Park {Luneta} (free admission)

I don't remember if I already talked about this in a previous post, but Rizal Park is one of the most iconic and recognizable places in the Philippines. It is a monument dedicated to our national hero, Jose Rizal. The base of the monument stands is where he was shot by the Spaniards. {Photo on right, courtesy of wikipedia.org} 

• Manila Ocean Park (General Admission: PHP 550) 

The Manila Ocean Park is an oceanarium. It is located near the Children's Museum (Museo Pambata) and houses a large number of diverse marine species. It's oceanarium contains different sections, such as "Agos" (the flow), "Laot" (fishing grounds) and "Bahura" (the reef). 

• Fort Santiago (General Admission: PHP 75, Children PHP 50) 

Fort Santiago was built in the 16th century, during the colonial period of the Spaniards. The Fort itself is used to symbolize the bravery and heroism of the Filipinos throughout the centuries. Step inside its gates to see a very unique historical and cultural feel of the Philippines. 

The Spoliarium. | Photo from wikipedia.org

• National Art Gallery (Admission fees unknown) 

The National Art Gallery contains lots of art, sculpture and cultural-themed exhibits that can give you an insight of the Philippines during the eras of the Japanese, Chinese and other influences that brought the Philippines today. You can see Juan Luna's famous painting, The Spoliarium here.

• Binondo: Manila's Chinatown 

The Philippines is also heavily influenced by the Chinese culture. Binondo is the oldest Chinatown in the world, and features colorfully decorated streets and uber-cheap food from street vendors / hawkers.


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Thoughts for Travelling PART 3: Shriya Sant

Thoughts for Travelling, a new section here in my blog where I interview people about their travelling experiences and their perspective on everything about "travel"

Click HERE to see PART 2, where I interviewed Daniele Grigaite.
Click HERE to see PART 1, where I interviewed Stephanie Younan.


PART 3: Shriya Sant -- Another classmate of mine from India, who currently lives in Liljeholmen in Sweden.


1: What's your favorite tourist spot here in Stockholm?

"Ummm... I would say Gamla Stan because it has a lot of really good waffles. And Stockholm originated from Gamla Stan, making it very old and interesting. 

2: What kind of travel tip can you share to us?

"I would say food, and you should pack food / snacks because the prices here (in Stockholm) are very expensive. Savor the food and its taste!" 

The Taj Mahal (Photo from Wikipedia)

3: If we go to your home country (India), where should we go? 

"It depends, because there's different stuff in different places. Like in Delhi there's the Taj Mahal and in Mumbai there's the city and its humid. I really recommend Delhi. I love the the history of the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort." 

4: Should you be scared of something while travelling? If yes/no, why? 

"I'm personally scared of losing my passport because that's the only thing I have, and if I lose it, I think that I'm not a citizen of my country anymore." 

5: When you hear the word "travelling", what's the first three words you think about?

"Extremely hot climate, exhausting and super cold water." 

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Thank you Shriya for letting me interview you!

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Going to Gamla Stan? Read My Blog Post About It Here. Click this link to also get a bonus of Stockholm's Changing of the Guards!

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Travel To The Philippines! Part 2 - FOOD

Before you continue to read this post, make sure you read part one. Read part one here.

So in my previous blog post, I talked about the fun and exciting things you can do in your visit to the Philippines. Now, I shall talk about gastronomy!!

• Pan de Sal & Ensaymada

These are the most iconic Philippine breads. Pan de Sal is a simple, small bun. That's it. Just a small bun. Filipino's like this in the morning with some Dairy Creme (butter) or some Cheez Whiz (cheese spread). Ensaymada, on the other hand, is my favorite Philippine bread. It's basically like a brioche, but it's topped with cheese and sugar. Simply amazing. 

• Kwek-Kwek & Fishball

Now for the Philippine version of street food. Street food vendors typically have a bicycle with a cart that has everything needed for them to cook tons of varieties of street food. Fishball is a typical example. These are basically fish, flour and other stuff mixed together, before being deep-fried onto the cart of the vendor. These are very cheap indeed. 1 piece typically costs 50 Philippine cents, which is about a U.S penny. 

My personal favorite street food is Kwek-Kwek, which is basically a quail egg deep fried with an orange batter. I also like Tokneneng, which applies the same principle, but uses a normal sized egg. 

Tokneneng (image by ph.news.yahoo.com) 

• Batchoy 

Oh my God, Batchoy. One of the most awesome inventions of mankind. It's basically noodles, chicken stock, crushed pork cracklings and beef loin. I have nothing left to say. Batchoy -- best there is. You can buy these in some restaurants (mostly family owned). There are also some hawkers by the sidewalks, but I don't buy this from them... 

• Lumpiang Shanghai 

Another one of those things that you just need to try. It's basically pork mince, carrots and other vegetables mixed together, stuffed inside an edible spring-roll wrapper, wrapped and deep-fried. You can see this in most Philippine restaurants that have a predominant Filipino or Chinese menu. My family once went to this fast-food place in Tagaytay and I ate a whole serving of this. That's about 15 spring rolls as big as your ring-finger. 

• Turon 

This basically has the same method of cooking as Lumpiang Shanghai, but is stuffed with banana slices and is covered with brown rice before deep-fried. I really like this because it's a hot dessert, and is not typical. Recommend buying this from hawkers. If you do purchase some, make sure that there's a lot of brown sugar coating that is not burnt. Turon can be gross if the sugar is burnt. 

• Sago't Gulaman 

You know that craze "boba tea"? This is basically like boba tea, but replace the "boba" things with squares of gelatin. And the liquid is basically some kind of infusion of pandan leaves and brown sugar. I have a family relative from Cavite in the Philippines that makes this and the smell of the pandan infusion and the sugar drags you to the kitchen (literally and figuratively). Do not buy this from the street / street vendors.

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