Dal rice and cabbage fry!

I was busy in testing the code... and suddenly I realized that there was no noise in my floor...!
Hmmm...It was lunch time.. and everyone from my team had gone down to the canteen for lunch... and they somehow forgot to call me today coz I sit a lil far from their cubicles...

I picked up my wallet and rushed down to the canteen.. But then everyone was done with lunch :(... So today I had to have lunch ALONE which I have never done before :( ...

Hmmm...in the lift, I was thinking "What would be on the menu in the canteen today" coz that had become very important now... the reason being... there's hardly anything served in vegetarian in the canteen...
The Omanis... who are the native people of the Sultanate of Oman, preferred non-veg more to the veg food, and non-vegetarian food is their staple food out here...

I am a non-vegetarian too... BUT... across the miles...my mom had put a BIG hurdle for me all these days...
November, being "Karthika Maasam", mom has ordered me not to eat Non-veg food and she's asked me to hold on till today, that's Nov 20th, probably the last Monday in Karthika Maasam!!!

So I have not had any non-veg food since the day I came here... :(
And the worst part of all this was to choose from burgers and sandwiches... and that too VEG :|...

But fortunately, there was dal and plain rice today... and the canteen guy also offered cabbage fry which was part of the veg menu :|...

Finally... I sat down to have my lunch... I had a problem... :|
I was finding it difficult to push the food down my throat...that's coz I have never had food alone anytime till now...

Back in Mumbai, if my friends were busy and couldn't catch up in lunch time... I used to catch hold of some one with even a lil acquaintance, have lunch and come back :)...
But things were surely different today...

And added to that the food on my plate...made me nostalgic....
In Mumbai...I used to stay with my friends in a flat...and all the 3 of us had the privilege of cooking everyday... a variety of South Indian dishes...
And one of my friends was a specialist in cooking dal... and her favorite was cabbage fry :) ....
When ever she cooked it, she used to beg me to have it... and ME... was always a NO for good vegetables... :| ... a typical eating problem :|...

Today, I was MISSING all that fun we had... I had finished having 3/4 th of the food on my plate...and one more min... I couldn't gulp down the remaining food... I got up from there...

And if my roomies ever read this blog sometime, they would really say "Aaah, this is typical of sway, she can never finish all the food on her plate " :)

Missing Mom-made food :(

Whenever you are planning to go to a new place... there's one thing you'll be worried about for sure........FOOD :)!!!

Before I flew to Muscat, food was one thing that mom, dad, my friends and just anyone who cared for me was worried about...

Bangalore... 8th Nov

I and my friend finished our work hurriedly at office, met at a mall... brainstormed on what things I’ll need to buy before I leave for Muscat...

We picked up all kinds of MTR stuff :)... Ready to eat Tomato rice, Tamarind rice and not to forget my Rasam rice too :D.... I had never tried these before...
I had only tried MTR puliogre mix... but you'll need to cook rice for the puliogre mix..!!!

So my buddy very well knew that I am one BIG lazy goose, He made things simpler for me :D...
He told me to simply buy the ready-to-eat stuff... so that I could just boil water and put these into it...and then my recipe would be ready :) !!!! I was just thinking... mmm....cooking all these is surely gonna be one major experiment in Muscat for me... :)

And added to these, mom also packed my favorite kajjaya and chakli :))... and gojju... for the rice...

Muscat... 16th Nov

Its 5 days in Muscat now... and I haven't unpacked my bags completely...I didn’t even get a chance to have a look at my ready-to-eat MTR rasam-tamarind-tomato rice :| :( ..... I have kept them for my weekend experiments :) !!!!

For now...I am thriving on burgers and sandwiches at the canteen in office....mostly for the breakfast and lunch everyday !!! :(

But I still feel relieved coz amazingly the location Ruwi, where I am put up... is the Indian part of Muscat !!!! :)...And I was shocked to know that there's...
- Kamat
- Saravana Bhavan
- Gujarati hotels
- Udupi Hotels
- Khana khazana....... and many more of these in Ruwi...which have come to my rescue now :)


I had a chance to go to a Gujju hotel and also Saravana Bhavan for dinner so far... tasted the yummy masala dosa there :))) ....
Sitting there in Saravana, along with my colleagues... I really can't tell you how nostalgic I was... whatever it is.....believe me...Nothing can ever beat Mom-made food !!!!!! :(((