BACK IN INDIA IN LONDON
When Todd and Susie called this morning they suggested that I could find wonderful Indian restaurants nearby and when I looked on line at Yelp, I did, our very favorite restaurant in New Delhi, Saravanaa Bhavan, and it was only 2 1/2 miles away. Lili, my landlady, insisted that all I had to do to ride the bus was to slap my debit card on the card reader, just as I did with the monthly pass in Paris, and it worked. But it was expensive, $7.95 for the ride, but since I wasn’t charged on the way back $8 must be the cap for the day although how London transport keeps track is a miracle. I assume that if I had made 4 rides they would have cost $2 apiece and been more reasonable. I am still learning and may try out the Oyster card that Chris recommends to see which is cheaper. But it is all part of the experience of a new place.
Anyway, riding the bus and using GPS got me to Saravanna Bhavan. It also took me back to India by way of London. Here almost everyone was Indian and many in Indian dress and almost all the stores, fronted on Georgian buildings, were Indian. Groceries, saries, plastic ware, jewelry, banks, barber shops, whatever Indian thing you wanted was here. And the Indian commercial taste was the same gaudy, brilliant, piled together, almost tawdry taste of the street leading down to Desasvamedh Ghat in Varanasi, all pasted on Georgian red brick architecture with signs in British Indian English. It was the opposite of Parisian elegance and good taste but fun because it was so familiar. Today was a bank holiday and also the end of the fasting of Ramadan so everyone was out celebrating.
And the South Indian thali with a mango lassi was just the same as at Saravanaa Bhavan on Connaught Place in New Delhi. The food was served on the same round stainless steel plates with ten kinds of curry and dal in a circle of round cups and a sweet along with a papadam and rice and a puri in the center. And it was delicious. The cost is $15 or so here, about four times the cost in New Delhi, but cheaper than making the trip.
So the visit to Indian London was great fun. My brother Richard led us last week to his favorite restaurant in Paris, Italian Madonnina, and I will take him to my favorite restaurant in London, Indian Saravanaa Bhavan, of which there are eight in various parts of the city.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 