I had just reached Singapore at what I call early morning—7 a.m.—and I was starving. So when my friend picked me up at the airport, we decided that I should get a good morning’s sleep and then proceed to eat our way through the day before getting a head start on shopping.
As planned, we went to a nearby mall to scout for food, and what a sight it was. All types of cured meat, a shawarma stall that showed off its big vertical spit, a bakery from where appetizing smells emanated, a candy shop that made you feel like a kid, an ice cream parlour… we were spoilt for choice. Now would be a good time to mention that both my friend and I are vegetarians.
The bakery lured me in, but my friend’s common sense prevailed: she dragged me to a restaurant where we could see people sipping on ice teas and tearing apart rotis. We sat at a common table along with two boys who were grinning widely us because they had probably figured out the fact that we were foreigners, thanks to our loud discussion in Tamil.
While I played safe with a roti-prata, dal and paneer combo, my usually non-adventurous friend surprised me by ordering a huge tandoori platter.
When it arrived, it was quite obvious that she’d made the wrong choice - there were huge chunks of meat along with three non-vegetarian and two vegetarian gravies, a bowl of Indian breads and a tub of what looked like vegetarian biryani. Obviously we ignored the meats and gravies and started on the plain bread while the guys opposite us started sniggering.
Then, bravely, I took a spoonful of the biryani and continued eating till my friend had a doubt. “What if it’s chicken biryani,” she asked and went over to ask the guy behind the counter who confirmed her worst fear. “It’s chicken, so stop eating,” she chided me. But I was hungry, and besides, I had already finished half the tub. The only logical thing to do was to polish it off, which I did.
