Chrismas Day in Mumbai

Christmas eve was so nice we didn't get home until 1am due to the train ride and the sitting around talking in a bar thing...so we diecided to take it easy on Chrismas morning....I got to sleep in Woohoo till 11am.  But the day wasn't quiet for much longer.  After 3 phonecalls from Ram and several text's I thought I would finally answer his call.  We had decided to go to the movies and go to a MALL...I was kind of excited actually, because again - a mall here isn't like a mall at home - right?  Inorbit was the name of the mall and it had a theater and 3 stories.  It was actually a small mall really becuse it wasn't spread out like ours are. 

But the only people you see in the malls are the wealthy upper class.  So, in a lot of ways it is a foreign bubble of westernization because just outside is the chaos from the rickshaws, totes, beggars, and slums.  The mall was the first place I saw something "christmass-y" (besides Santa the night before).

In the mall was a KFC, Ruby Tuesdays, Pizza Hut, and a Subway. There were also other unfamiliar coffee joints, donut shops, and Thai/Chinese food places. I had Subway! YUM. Course, there is no roast beef on the menu and my Subway melt (170Rs) which normally has bacon chicken and turkey did not have bacon per say, rather what they called bacon which tasted/looked/smelled like what we call sliced honey ham.

Either way it was AWESOME to have green lettuce, mayo, tomatoes, olives, and meat I could recognize on bread that tasted normal. Really, the food here is Good and GREAT in some places. Its just that when you have NO option (like I have now) cravings for familiar things arise and Im psyched when something that is labeled Nacho cheese actually tastes like nacho cheese.

After wandering the mall for a while we decided to check what time the movie started…we were 4 hours early for the only showing that wasn’t sold out (12 midnight). The theater had 3 screens and all but the midnight shows were closed. So, we decided to head back to the ocean and sit there for a while. It was nice.

After our sitting we got hungry so ended up at this place…

I have to ask Bec what the name was but OMG was it fun and good. Its this retro joint that has Austin power / In like Flint type furniture (see my Picasa Album for further pics). We sat at a large old school telephone table and began our orders for Christmas dinner with Milkshakes! I had the Ferro Roche Milkshake and YUM was it divine – esp at the end.

We all ended up ordering the “Traditional Christmas Special” which was garlic rubbed chicken with masala gravy or something drizzled over it on a bed of pureed mashed potatoes and spinach accompanied by garlic rubbed bread. Dinner came with a free glass of wine.

After dinner we decided to order another glass of wine and then have desert. I was almost too full so Bec and I decided to split a desert.  Now, there have only been 2 other times in my life I had been this happy to have a chocolate desert put in front of me – to the point where I actually couldn’t eat any more. I can always pack away the chocolate, but this Avalanche (200Rs) the best $ Ive ever spent.

It had chocolate cake as a base, topped with chocolate ice cream, chocolate moose covered in a hard chocolate shell, with chocolate brownie chunks and chocolate truffles as well as a tall sculpture of chocolate/white chocolate drizzled with chocolate syrup.  This that I am holding is the JR Avalanche ...there is a larger one....Next time Im not going to share!