A few more thoughs on Delhi

The coffee chains in India are Barista and Cafe Coffee Day. The last often has free wireless. The Coffee Day next to McDonald's/across from Cottage Emporium is particularly cozy.

Cottage Emporium (officially Central Cottage Industries Emporium), a government run store on Janpath, is the best place for one-stop shopping. Cab drivers will try to take you to a fake Cottage Emporium with a very similar sounding name so they can get their commission. You'll know if you are at the right one because it is across from McDonald's, has multiple stories, and the prices are marked. It's a great place to get moderately-priced quality gifts, as well as more expensive ones. Also good are the State Emporia such as Orissa's nearby (across from the Hanuman Monkey Temple), and the Dilli Haat open air market, also with food stalls and cultural shows from around the country.

My top sights in Delhi are Humayan's tomb, the Gandhi Ashram and the National Museum.

In Indian English, "bucks" means rupees, not dollars, so 100 bucks is a 100 rupees, or $2.50. A friend of mine likes to keep them straight by saying "Hindi bucks," which evokes a William Gibson cyberpunky global-age Zeitgeist for me.

Dining in New Delhi

Having spent several months in New Delhi, I'll give you my take on eating out there. As in most Indian cities, dining out is still a bit frowned upon, though this is changing as the cities modernize, meaning that Mumbai, and then Bangalore, have the most interesting dining and night life opportunities. Therefore, the best Punjabi cuisine in Delhi is not to be found at the restaurants, but at homes. And certainly there is not much good ethnic/global cuisine to be found there, except maybe the Tibetan and Nepalese immigrant-derived options.

Street food can also be an interesting affair in Delhi, but you need to be very careful about that throughout all of India. It is one of the few places in the world (and I have been to many third-world countries) where I am very circumspect about eating on the streets (let me know if you survive a pani puri encounter).

Old Punjabi standbys include Moti Mahal, where murg makhani, a sort of alfredo-like butter chicken, was supposedly invented, and Karim's (Mughlai). For haute cuisine, Haveli and Bukhara are oft-cited, though I think they are a tad overrated, and both expensive even by Western standards.

What do I recommend for the visitor? For great South Indian veggie food, try Sagar Ratna, which has outlets all over the city and will run you US$2-3. Chor Bizarre (Kashmiri) and Punjabi By Nature offer good veg and especially non-veg options and will set you back about $10 (both have locations in London, by the way). For a splurge, and one of the few modern/fusion options, try Masala Art, which cooks everything in olive oil rather than ghee. Mark Bittman, the Minimalist, agrees with two of these choices. There isn't a standard dining guide for all of India. The Hindustan Times Dining Guide is good for Delhi and Kingfisher Explocity is good for Bangalore. Both are available in bookstores.

Element Spice and The Indian Kitchen

Greetings everyone, this is first entry in the ELEMENT SPICE culinary blog!

While many of the entries will relate specifically to the spice compounds made by ELEMENT SPICE, there will also be various culinary topics and musings. ELEMENT SPICE, as a concept, was born out of Robert's experience living in India, on and off, for the past couple of years. While participating in the new Indian economy, I found myself enraptured with the Indian way of eating and cooking. I took cooking classes in Delhi, visited a spice plantation in Goa, a tea plantation near Ooty in Tamil Nadu (Kaikatty Indco Collective), and spice markets in Cochin, Kerala, including the world's last remaining pepper exchange. The way that Indians use spice is quite an art form, and heck, they were the original reason that foreigners traveled there. Sail an empty ship to India, fill the holds with spice, and if you made it back, you were rich!