My alimentary tract has come alive with the smells, sights and sounds of Delhi

How much of my alimentary tract?

All my alimentary tract! I’ve just returned from eight nights away from Canberra, five of which were spent in Delhi, India. I was participating in a World Health Organization meeting on poliovirus containment.

One of the highlights, apart from the meeting, was the food. Every meal was filled with flavourful spices from all parts of India.

Twitter embed for alimentary tract alive tweet

Facebook embed for alimentary tract alive tweet

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Breakfasts

I ate breakfasts in the hotel and each morning I had an omelette with bacon and most days spicy baked beans. I also added a few Indian treats including the different types of bread.  

Cheese omelet with baked beans and bacon breakfast at The Imperial alimentary tract Gary Lum
Cheese omelette with baked beans and bacon breakfast at The Imperial
Tuesday breakfast at The Imperial Hotel. A little more adventurous with some local bread. alimentary tract Gary Lum
Tuesday breakfast at The Imperial Hotel. A little more adventurous with some local bread.
Is it wrong to have lovely spicy baked beans with my poori along with a cheese omelet and bacon? alimentary tract Gary Lum
Is it wrong to have lovely spicy baked beans with my poori along with a cheese omelette and bacon?
The potato dumpling went well with the spicy baked beans as well as the cheesy omelet and bacon alimentary tract Gary Lum
The potato dumpling went well with the spicy baked beans as well as the cheesy omelette and bacon
Croissant and doughnut alimentary tract Gary Lum
Croissant and doughnut
TGIF my last breakfast. Aloo Bhaji on paratha meets my spicy baked beans, cheese and chilli 🌶 omelette with bacon alimentary tract Gary Lum
TGIF my last breakfast. Aloo Bhaji on paratha meets my spicy baked beans, cheese and chilli 🌶 omelette with bacon

Lunches

Each day I tried something different and yet each day there were elements that were the same, like pappadums. The main regions with distinctive flavours are the north, south and east.  

Northern Indian food alimentary tract Gary Lum
Northern Indian food
Eastern Indian curry lunch alimentary tract Gary Lum
Eastern Indian curry lunch
Southern Indian lunch Imperial Hotel alimentary tract Gary Lum
Southern Indian lunch Imperial Hotel
French chicken cassoulet and crepe Florentine with mutton masala is such a good flavour combination alimentary tract Gary Lum
French chicken cassoulet and crepe Florentine with mutton masala is such a good flavour combination
Chocolate mousse and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce alimentary tract Gary Lum
Chocolate mousse and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce
Friday lunch Imperial Hotel, chicken, cauliflower, lamb and paratha alimentary tract Gary Lum
Friday lunch Imperial Hotel, chicken, cauliflower, lamb and paratha

Dinners

Monday night was a buffet with a northern touch.

Northern Indian dinner at The Imperial Hotel | The big green balls were a bit funky, everything else was fantastic. alimentary tract Gary Lum
Northern Indian dinner at The Imperial Hotel | The big green balls were a bit funky, everything else was fantastic.

Tuesday night I had a Thai duck curry.

Kaeng Phed Ped Yang | Roasted duck cooked in Thai red curry garnished with pineapple and rambutan | Spice Route Restaurant alimentary tract Gary Lum
Kaeng Phed Ped Yang | Roasted duck cooked in Thai red curry garnished with pineapple and rambutan | Spice Route Restaurant

On Wednesday night, I went out with some WHO colleagues and we went to Barbecue Nation. It was a barbeque pit with hot coals placed in the middle of the table with spicy meat on metal skewers cooked as you want it.

Barbecue Nation, Delhi. Prawns, Chicken and Fish. alimentary tract Gary Lum
Barbeque Nation, Delhi. Prawns, Chicken and Fish.

Thursday night was my last night staying at the Imperial Hotel, and I ate at Daniell’s Tavern. I enjoyed Burra memsahib’s favourite pepper mutton from Coorg. It was mutton tossed in spicy marsala with lots and lots of black pepper corns. 

My mouth is so happy with Burra memsahib's favourite pepper mutton from Coorg. Mutton tossed in spicy marsala. Sorry about poor light. alimentary tract Gary Lum
My mouth is so happy with Burra memsahib’s favourite pepper mutton from Coorg. Mutton tossed in spicy marsala. Sorry about poor light.
Garlic naan alimentary tract Gary Lum
Garlic naan

Would I return?

Sure, if I need to return to work there, of course, I would. Would I go to Delhi for a holiday? I wouldn’t in winter, maybe summer. I’d probably want to explore the other regions.

My reason for not returning in winter is not so much the cold, it wasn’t. It was the very low humidity. My skin became a mess. I was forever applying moisturiser and it didn’t feel like anything would help. It was very uncomfortable.

Final thoughts on eating in Delhi

I titled this post “My alimentary tract has come alive with the smells, sights and sounds of Delhi”. Every mouthful of food was like having a party in my mouth. Some meals were spicier than others. The food from the south seemed to be hotter and more intense. The food from the east seemed to be milder. Each meal though was very nice. I didn’t go much for the desserts, I was eating so much rice, I don’t think I needed any more carbohydrates.

The good news is I didn’t feel unwell at all and there were no episodes of gastroenteritis. That said, there was an awful lot of gurgling noises from my bowels. Some nights it was almost musical.

The food is also very colourful. It was like art on a plate or in a bowl. The only meal I had that didn’t look pretty was my favourite meal, the pepper mutton. Best meal but nothing to look at.

In terms of smells, each dish had amazing aromas, and given the title of this blog post, the fragrant aromas passed completely through my alimentary tract. I suppose I shouldn’t write anything more about that.

Another surprising thing!

Apart from my iPhone, I didn’t bring a camera. You can tell the images are not as sharp. My iPhone photography suffers from motion blur, especially on aeroplanes. 

Parting words

I regularly post photographs of food to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Please feel free to connect with me on any social media platform.
I also have a podcast. It’s not food related but each show is short and it’s named Medical Fun Facts. You can find it in the iTunes podcast store as well as Stitcher. A show drops every Monday and Tuesday. It has a little cynicism, a little scepticism and occasionally some sarcasm.

17 Responses

  1. Yes, that is how Delhi is. This place certainly has all the varieties of national and international dishes, and your plate looks sumptuous. Hope you had a great time and Delhi! Also, check my blogs on Delhi if you want to know more about the city 🙂

  2. Good to hear that you weren’t ill there. When I first moved to Japan to live I felt a bit nauseous for the first few days as I adjusted to new food. It hasn’t happened since thankfully.

    1. I was very careful Lorraine. No fruit nor salad passed my lips. All the food was cooked and the water was bottled. I have in the past hads food poisoning overseas. I was more careful than normal this time given the importance of the meeting.

  3. What a post on food and India. Very colourful, and what are those funky green balls? :O

    From your photos, it looks like Indian food is not only big on spice but also big on saucy. Now that you are back in Canberra, maybe eating will feel a bit bland to your tastebuds now 😀

    I have to agree that the mutton dish was the most…tame in terms of look, lol. I thought your photos from the airplane in the previous post looked much sharper. Better lighting and I didn’t see motion blur. When I travel, I always pack a camera, in particular my high-end point and shoot – I feel naked without it.

    I don’t know what Irene is talking about. Maybe you fixed it, but I find your blog easy to read. Just that it takes about thirty seconds to load but about the same as some other blogs I read.

    1. Thank you so much Mabel,
      The green balls were a kofte but I found them quite odd.
      You’re right, food over the last few days has been quite bland. I will need to start exploring adding a lot more spice to my food.
      My main concern with bringing a camera is that I’d been warned about crime and petty theft and given my time was focussed on work and a lot of reading material, I elected to go naked. I share that feeling, if I don’t have my mirrorless or DSLR with me I feel exposed.
      I’ve tried to deactivate the SumoMe sharing bar now that I have other sharing options installed. The SumoMe plugin gave me some analytic data but it’s not worth it if readers are put off by it.
      You may have seen on Instagram, I’m back into my routine…salmon Monday 😂

      1. True that a camera can attract theft, especially if you are in a foreign country and are more likely to stick out. Good to hear you were safe and everyone else too.

        I find it odd that you found it drying in Delhi. Melbourne is already dry as it is, and I can’t imagine it would be that worse in the Asian region :/

  4. Hi Gary,
    All looks very good, I just have one asking for you. Will you please try to open your blog in a PC and see, how difficult it is to read your posts?
    These 5 shares in left side destroy the possibility to read at your blog.

    1. Hi Irene, thanks, I have the same thing happen on a mobile device. I touch or click on the crown at the bottom and two blue triangles appear. If you click on them or touch them on a mobile device the whole bar moves out of the way.

    2. Irene, I’ve tried deactivating the SumoMe plugin which is responsible for the sharing bar. You may have to empty your browser’s cache first before you see any difference.

  5. Gary it all looks superbly delicious. I love that you posted foodie images throughout your trip, as I dined vicariously with you over the web 🙂 cheers, Kirsty

    1. Thank you so much Kirsty. While I can’t post much about what I do for work, I like that I can share photographs of what I’m eating.

    1. Thanks Sue. I’d never really appreciated Indian food until now. Spending a week ‘immersed’ in it has really made a difference to my appreciation.

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