It was one of our last meals in China. Soon we would leave for Hong Kong, to reverse our route back to Mumbai, with a brief stop in Thailand – just because we were that close to it, we decided. So this lunch, sort of like the last wish of prisoners just before that walk to the end of execution lane, was exactly what hit the spot, perfectly and deliciously.
The day began, as all days in China began, with a cup of hot green tea, made fresh from the steaming water in the thermos poured over a few leaves in the bottom of a large bowl. It freshened the mind and mouth and pushed you right into the bathroom, from where you emerged, cleansed inside and out, feeling like a new person. Dressed, made up, shod, ready to go, we collected the lobby of the hotel and set out on our final adventure. First stop, the Chinese pharmacy, where I was to be examined and my tummy woes attended to (my doctor back in Mumbai later diagnosed it as a resident amoeba, but at least it was a Chinese one!), my spots managed and my general state of glowing being restored. The pharmacist held my wrist to feel my pulse and read my chakras (if that was what he told me in many very long paragraphs of gabble) as I stared totally fascinated at the array of bottles and glass-fronted cupboards around the vast room. And we left the store with a huge number of cardboard boxes, each filled with 12 round ‘pills’, each the size of a ping-pong ball and with the consistency of smooth plasticine. Stacking them in our spare suitcase, grumbling mildly at the extra baggage, my father wondered whether I would ever last out the course.
I would, I promised him as much as I did myself and, just to prove the point, popped one ‘pill’ into my mouth just before we got out at the restaurant we were to have lunch in. It was the consistency of what I imagined well-blended cow dung to be, with a nasty, bitter-clay taste and the enduring flavour of something that should have been declared rotten not just in Denmark, but all over the world as well. It clung with the persistence of smooth peanut butter and stuck to my teeth and tongue and palate with the insistence of superglue. When we walked into the restaurant, I was the pale green of boiled cabbage, working hard to get the lingering traces of the gunk off my tastebuds. Hot water was followed by cold water, in swigs and gulps that would have put a thirsty horse to shame. Finally, feeling a little less assailed by ancient Chinese curative techniques, I settled down to lunch.
It was a spread to die for. Typically Muslim in flavour – which was perfect, since we had just come out of a beautiful little mosque where the Koran was being read in Chinese – it combined smells and tastes that had the hint of the mysterious East blended divinely with those of the deserts of the Arabian peninsula. A deep dish held a melange of eggplant cooked with enough garlic to make a Greek chef proud, dripping with olive oil and blushed with a rosy haze of red chilli. Another was home to a huge expanse of pilaf, studded with nuts and raisins and redolent with saffron. Chicken was cooked with apricots and scented with a special sweetness that was almost caramel. Fish floated in a spicy gravy spotted with deep orange bubbles of spice. And fresh, crisp green leaves of lettuce, spinach and who knows what else tempted with its coolth, soothing an inflamed mouth. To end, a wonderfully flaky, sweet, terrifically nutty baklava, one that coated the throat with a soft layer of honey and butter.
It was not the most exotic meal we ate in China, but certainly the most appreciated. For weird, we dotted the country with pins. More on that another time…
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