The other day Apputhurai Sinthujan .... aka Pakat... one of our safety's for the cougars, took us out to eat Indian food in Paris. Pakat is actually from Sri Lanka and I had been bugging him to try the traditional food. It was an experience. Matt, Will, Loic S., Pakat, his girlfriend Caroline and myself went to Chettinadu, a traditional Indian resturant.
We walked in and dominated the space. Being 3 offensive lineman, it was funny watching all the people look up to us and stare at our size. We sat down and Pakat started to speak in Hindi (i'm guessing that's the language I'm not quite sure) It sounded like a fast mumbler ripping off word after word. Kind of like a motorcycle engine reving up. It was so fast, I have no clue how he could understand.
Anyways I told Pakat to just order for me... give me the traditional experience. It was great. We started with some appetizers. Samossa Viande, Somossa Legume... small triangle shaped pastrys filled with meat or veggies. Medu Vadi and Masal Vadai.... small packed veggies or bread fried, think hush puppy like but with more ingredients. My favorite the rolls packed with spicy meat, eggroll style fried and dusted with maybe cinnamon or sugar or something sweet. Amazing these where so good. Of course we had different sauces to put on all of these. A white sauce that was not as spicy and a green sauce resembling guacamole that was spicier.
Then we got my favorite part of the entire meal. Nan au fromage. This Indian type of bread, delicious on it's own, filled with creamy fondu like cheese. It comes to you in a huge puff ball shape and you push down the top layer of Nan onto the cheese and bottom layer. It is amazing. We had about 2 of these per person, or more. SOOOOOOOo good. Oh and the sauce we put on top of it. AHhhh seriously amazing. They also brought out a Poulet Tandoori....some very tender rottiserrie barbecue style chicken.
Along the appetizer Pakat introduced us to Necto, a drink. The bottle has a huge elephant on it, so I didn't know what to expect. It was a framboise flavored drink, meaning raspberry. I usually dislike raspberry flavored stuff. Just not a fan of artificial raspberry syrup, but this was the real deal. It was so sweet and helped the little bit of spice from the appetizers. We then sat around talking and waiting for the food to come. I tried to work on my french and understand why sometime you have to use "pas" after for instance "Je ne sais pas" Je= I, sais= know, ne + pas = the negative, like don't. So you use ne pas for the negative of a noun. Anyways there was some case about me trying to say I can not take any more food. Where you do not use pas, because the next word includes it or what not. This being said, I in my Texan ways, got a little louder in trying to figure it out. Apparently they thought I was yelling and getting upset... not the case, just my style of intensity and passion. All was good but it was a little funny.
After they brought out the main courses, we had 4 Kothu Parotta, a neat dish eaten with the hands...mostly made up of the diced nan bread, some form of meat, and some veggies. It was really neat you basically balled up a bite to eat on the dish and then grabbed it like you would an egg. Then with your thumb you pushed the food into your mouth. It was so funny, Matt was like "all my life I've been told not to eat with your hands and now that I'm older I get to do the opposite." I ate a huge crepe like thing filled with a potatoey paste with 4 different dipping sauces. Really good and crispy. Willie had a nan filled plate too. It was such a great dinner.
Afterwards we went to a different restaurant for dessert. My belly was completely full by this time and I told Pakat, I don't know if I can do this... he assured me it would be alright since dessert was just a drink. Oh and it was worth it. A strawberry milkshake type drink, with pieces of jelly like candy floating in the drink and small hard sugar things in it as well. It went down quick.
All in all I had a great time learning the Indian cuisine and it is definetly a lot easier having a native speaker order for you. I don't know how I would've been able to go on my own. Actually I probably wouldn't have. Thanks Pakat.... Indian food was delicious.
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