Mavalli Tiffin Room

The ladies went and put in some jewelry orders today with some Kashmiri guys that do custom work.  The men left them to go exploring. 

A and I toured a park I hadn't been to before.  I've discovered that each mound of exposed rock in India of any size gets either a park or a shrine for its trouble.  This particular mound of rock had both.

The men had an entertaining lunch at the Mavalli Tiffin Room.  At MTR you are seated at a communal table and issued a big metal plate and a metal cup of something that tastes vaguely like cranberry cocktail.  Then a string of guys comes by with metal containers and ladles, every 30 to 120 seconds, ladling something new onto your plate without expression or explanation.  Most of the things are entirely unidentifiable to someone who is not deeply familiar with Indian food (i.e. me).  You could reasonably describe the ambiance as haute prison.

About 50% of the things are quite good; the rest are either vaguely interesting or not worthy of more than a taste for curiosity's sake.  The power went out about half way through the meal for three minutes; this passed without remark or discernible reaction from either patrons or servers.  It is just this sort of forcible expulsion from one's comfort zone that makes a trip to India so much more rewarding than a week in Cabo.

Since we have spent all of our time in Bangalore so far, mostly doing things we have done previously, I haven't taken a lot of photos, but nobody likes words-only content anymore, so I'll throw in a couple of shots from the sari fitting yesterday, on a pro forma basis. 

Choose fabric.

Get fitted.

Dosas at Woody's on Commerce Street, now a tradition of sorts.