sweet taste of India...

Well, folks, I finally did it. I've been on this earth for...several years...and I finally tried Indian food. It's not that I haven't wanted to try it, but rather, I've never really had the opportunity to try it. (Okay, there was that one semester in grad school when I lived in "The Curry Palace" with a nice Indian gal, but we were never there at the same time, and I wasn't about to dig into her leftovers when we knew so little about each other, you know?)

Anyway...I made a resolve to try it this year, and when Coretta found out about it, she asked me, please, could she be there with me when it went down, and also that it needed to go down at the Bombay House in Provo.

So that's what happened.

The drive there was not out of the ordinary for the Ginabean in a city she doesn't know well. I'm no good with directions, even when I google-map it beforehand. I had full intentions of going to the Jordan River Temple yesterday afternoon. But somehow...somehow!...I missed my exit. So I just continued on to the Provo Temple.

Things weren't any better in Provo, in case you were wondering. I've been to the Provo Temple before, but never from the way south exit.

Know how I bragged about my apple pie, and that I can change at lightning speed? 'Member how great I am at those two things? Well...my sense of direction (or complete lack thereof) is something else entirely. Other adjectives that apply: intriguing, astounding, "impressive", interesting...umm...pathetic. Sad. Depressing. Right. Get the picture? To help my sad little ego just now, let it be said that I make quite the navigator if I'm not driving. (And if we're not driving around in Nanaimo, BC. Man, I got us way lost there, but I blame it on the scaling of the map we used.)

Moving on...

I met Coretta (a dear friend/previous roommate from yesteryear) at Bombay House at 7:00 last night. (I drove by that place 3 or 4 times before I found it. And it ain't hidden, really.) Oh, how joyful it was to see my Coretta-friend! I think the last time we saw each other was nearly 4 years ago. She's married and has 3 kiddos, we haven't seen each other in 4 years, and things felt just like it was yesterday that we were roommates at BYU-Idaho. STUPENDOUS, don't you think?!

Coretta knows what foods I like, and, more importantly, she knows what I don't like. Plus, she knows Bombay House. So we figured out some options I'd likely like, you know? And, since they had lamb on the menu and it's my goal to taste lamb by the year's end, I killed two birds with one stone and ordered lamby, Indian-style. (I so wanted to call the title of this post "Mary had a little lamb, and I ate it," but my mom said it sounded too harsh, like I'm eating a pet. Out of respect for my mom, and pets everywhere, I obliged.)

Coretta and moi at the Bombay House
(I love this girl!)

We went all-out and ordered beverages too...
These are Rose Lassi and Strawberry Lassi

It really is the darnedest thing, but Rose Lassi tastes exactly how a rose smells, but delicious. Not so you'd want to throw up at all! Who knew?! -I ordered Strawberry to be safe, but Coretta let me have a sip or two of her Rose...

The spread...
You ought to be jealous!

My first bite of Indian food...
This was the Lamb Boti Kabab Masala, FYI...

I wasn't quite ready for the picture, can you tell?
This is just before my first bite of Raj's Chicken.
(If I could write "Supremely Delicious" in Hindi, I would)

Holy. Crap. How have I gone my entire life thus far without going crazy on this stuff?! -I'm fairly sure my body would hate me if I tried the super spicy stuff, but Indian food is amazing! And what the what? They use ginger and mango in, like, tons of their recipes. Mango ain't my fave fruit, but I rather enjoy what India can do with it!

Coretta and I also ordered the Onion Naan (flatbread) and mango ice cream. (Yeah, here's something truly shocking: that ice cream didn't hurt my tummy at all. I think it's cause it was more yogurty than ice creamy.)

The Mango Ice Cream...
Isn't it lovely?!

So yeah. Yesterday was good (despite the set-back that is my sense of direction). It was DYNAMITE seeing Coretta again for a couple of hours! And after that, Lisa let me crash at her place so I wouldn't crash on the freeway. It was loverly seeing her again too!