The Manchurian cravings

When you have lived out of the country for more than 3 years, certain things start to matter more. Food.. time with parents and friends.. food.. you know what I'm getting at. When I arrived in Chennai, I found it incredibly hard to balance two core desires - the desire to remain the weight I was when I landed (if not lose more) and the desire to eat everything I craved. Evidently the second option won because my dad's been telling me that I have gained weight (I am yet to figure out whether thats just to panic me or if its true - the house doesn't own a weighing machine). I have curtailed most of my desires to eat out a whole lot.. and have been eating supervised (by me) home-cooked food with less oil, frying blah blue.. When you are a bride-to-be, such things start to matter much more than you thought possible. But as we friends made dinner plans a couple of weeks ago, the craving to eat Indian Chinese not only didn't fade away but became sooo much that I found myself telling M that I wanted Chinese and she had to suggest some place to go to. As she ticked off authentic Chinese places, I realized that I hadn't made it very clear that I craved indian-chinese particulary the gobi manchurian... that too roadside. I hastily corrected my cuisine choice illiciting a few laughs from her in the process. As we put our plans to action the next day, we couldn;t make to the place we wanted to. And improvising led us to a new 3-star place near my house.. somewhere I was certain it would be possible to get the coveted dish. But it wasn't to be. And I was left with its paler cousin, the gobi 65 - not half as good. And so it dragged. It seemed I was jinxed.. most places we went to didnt end up serving it. And the craving escalated to what I assume will be a pregnancy potency. And it required exclusive action. And so my dad schemed with me and we decided it was never going to happen by itself and we had to make exclusive plans and we stopped at the Besant Nagar fast food, a roadside delicatessan (the highest level word for a potti kadai) which served elaborate junk. And they took 35 minutes to make my dish... and my patience wore thin. It was worth every millisecond though when I sank my teeth in for that first bite. It was out of this world.

I have had 2 more plates of gobi manchurian since (without sharing) and have enjoyed every bite of it.. I hope I haven't packed as many pounds along the way.. What remains yet to-be-eaten are Murugan Idly's dishes, Eden's Continental and American Chopsuey... Ah.. I guess I'll leave somethings for me n the groom to dine out. :)