I love Indian food. Tonight, I went to one of my favorite gems down in the South Bay near where I work, a restaurant called Ularavaru. It’s not a particularly bougie spot; I found it one day when I was search for buffets - you know I love a buffet - and it came up because on M-W for dinner they do an all-you-can-eat thali setup. You get vegetarian or, uh, non-vegetarian, and they bring you a colorful plate full of all sorts of mystery things, all of which are delicious, and none of which do I know the name of. Plus free chai, and water, and papadam, and dosas, and just basically everything. I have no idea of course if it’s really authentic but I can tell you that nobody in there is speaking any English and the place is packed and I don’t think they’re making any effort to make me feel more comfortable, either with the surroundings or with the food. There’s no WiFi and the cell service sucks, so all you have to do is sit there and actually eat your food. And it’s amazing. Everything is spicy; I don’t think they even realize that the food is spicy to white people. I’m not sure they would even know what to say if you asked them how spicy it is because I’m not sure they even know. They will bring you seconds of anything but you have to wait for them to bring those four-containered metal jugs that they carry around and then - if you’re me - you just have to point at things because you have no idea what they’re called. And they must have about 3 different DVDs full of Bollywood music videos because I’ve only been there a half dozen times and I’m already seeing the same ones repeat. And it’s only like $12! I come out of there sweating like a pig but I think I’ve got all my vitamins and minerals for a week and probably killed off several infections growing in my body.
I’m eternally grateful that being who I am, and living where I do, I get to have experiences like this. Gimme a week and I’ll be back.
