April 17th (2020)

 

April 17th

Today’s mission, should I choose to accept it......

Is to score a Masala Dosa. 

This message will self destruct in 5 seconds...

Den den, den den den den den......

Yesterday I forgot to buy bread. That dire failure, coupled with a distinct lack of cornflakes (down to a third of a bowel for breakfast), urges me to go out to seek my morning repast. Luckily, I had scouted a possible place for South Indian food (idli, dosa, vadai, uttapam) for breakfast. It’s Curry Walla, on Sivutha Boulevard, Siem Reap.

Along the way, passing KFC, I dodge scooters, cars, masked pedestrians and try not to trip over building materials, or loose paving stones. The city seems a little more awake now but, with still a dearth of tourists, I see few white faces and most (non tourist) establishments are closed. I don’t have a problem with either.

I’m there, at Curry Walla, ordering Masala Dosa and white coffee. Oddly enough there is an East/West fusion band called Masala Dosa, but then maybe not so odd as ‘masala’ means mixed. At first, one waiter wanted me to sit outside, while I started to say no, I do not want to sit on their warm, dusty veranda, obviously a more senior staff motioned me inside, showed me to a seat and turned the fan on. I thanked him, of course. I order.

My order arrives. It is a tri-corner dosa, looking somewhat like a flag waiting to be unfurled. That dosa comes with sambar and two thick paste-like chutneys (chick pea and coconut), not at all the slightly sludgy chutneys in Malaysia. The dosa, filled with potato, is crispy, thin, but filling, not the filling, as on its own the filling would not be filling, but together with the dosa is filling. Eating that dosa, and seeing Indians too, sets me off on a reverie. Recollections of my past in India come, unbidden, to mind, my journeying to the North, South and West of India, but sadly not East, not unless you count Bangladesh which had once been East Bengal.

It is decades since I had my first dosa, maybe 1995, but I couldn’t be sure. From 1979 through to 2004 were my ‘Indian Days’, North Indian, South Indian and Sri Lankan food, travels in India, Sri Lanka, staying in Chennai with A R Rahman’s music director, listening to A R Rahman’s music, seeing Indian film stars and Indian fusion music exponents (live and in concert), buying DVDs of Bollywood films, visiting ‘authentic’ Indian/Sri Lankan eateries in East London, and Southall. It was a different life. I, briefly, returned to New Delhi (India), in 2010, to bolster my love/hate for the land. People who have stayed in India know what I mean.

The weather today talks of rain. There is humidity building. The sky looks turbulent ,on this quiet Friday, and I’m feeling bleh!

In today’s The Khmer Times, we are reminded that it was on April 17th when the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia.

Today’s spend

Breakfast (Curry Wallah) - dosa and coffee (x2)) is $7.25

Shopping (Angkor Market) - Bread, bananas, Schweppes Tonic Water (x2), Indochine Wheat Beer, Coke Cola coffee, Glade Fresh Lemon Spray, is $7.90 

Total $15.15