Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!
While I was away in the tropics, I missed Indian food. It is indeed ironic that despite the proximity of India and the Philippines, and the long presence of Indian immigrants in the Philippines, the country lacks Indian restaurants.
Yesterday, I met up with H and M to go to our favourite Indian lunch buffet at Maha Rajah. I had thought that their very spicy lamb dish could provide the throat comfort I was looking for. Maha Rajah was closed! Under normal health condition, I would panic. But I was too weak for that.
And so we ended up at the New Happy India further down the same road where Maha Rajah is located. Happy India is more popular than Maha, except that they didn’t have lunch buffet.
I had lamb curry that came with rice and a small plate of salad. The salad dressing was interesting. It was plain yoghurt sweetened with some fruit juice or syrup. The curry sauce was wonderfully full of flavour whose spiciness slowly penetrated the taste buds. M also ordered lamb curry and seemed equally satisfied as I was.
H ordered beef sambal masala. Tasty and outright spicy. Too spicy for H and just perfect for my throat that was dying to be scratched. I exchanged my lamb curry sauce with H’s sambal masala sauce. Perfect! I want a second helping but it will cost me. Boy, that was the quickest Indian lunch for this trio.
That evening, H was in for a surprise (or shock). I wanted some more Indian food and suggested dinner at Ellora, another Indian restaurant right across our street. Are you serious? You see, I didn’t get enough throat scratching at Happy India. Besides I am recovering from unwellness and I badly need some plumping up.
H and I enjoyed lamb korma and lamb butter masala. The place was spacious and the atmosphere relaxing. Well, it was the end of the day and nobody had to return to work. Over refreshing drinks of plain water, I let H on details about my vacation. Starting to get drunk, eh?
