Mmm

The best part about all of the obnoxious flyers people have been shoving into our mailboxes and under our doors are the takeaway menus. Dominoes campaigned really hard during freshers week, but even with their ridiculous amount of coupons, the pizza at Piccante is much better priced. And tastier, from what I know of Dominoes back home... So now I have a place from which to order pizza. And kebabs, if the mood strikes, although there is a kebab stand that sets up in a car park on campus on party nights. Clever business strategy, really, with so many kids running around drunk off their behinds. I believe I mentioned that their kebabs are really good with ketchup. One of the menus also offers alcohol, tobacco products, and ice cream, I suppose so that you can get everything you need for a good night all in one go.

The best takeaway experience so far was when Padma and I ordered Indian from a place called Simply Spiced. Delivery is free, we get 10% off cos we’re students, and the food is really good! The menu offers just about everything you could think of, and there’s a note saying that if they don’t have it on the menu, you should ask for it anyway and they’ll try to come up with it. In addition to starters, rice and salads, breads, tandoori dishes, sabjees, specials , omelettes and biriyani, they have fifteen different curries offered five ways each, including vegetarian.

We tried the saag paneer, a creamy spinach and cheese dish and an order of the garlic nan, which was spread with roasted garlic. From the curry menu we ordered vegetarian Kashmir, which featured a mild fruity sauce of coconut, pineapple and banana. We also tried the vegetarian Pathia curry, which was the favourite. Spicy, but not overpowering, and just a little bit sweet. They sent along a dish of Bombay aloo, spiced potatoes which were very pleasant and definitely something I could do myself with little trouble.

In my own kitchen, I’ve made panang, chili, roasted potatoes, Glamaorgan sausages, lots of rice and a really bad batch of mac and cheese. Glamorgan sausages are apparently a Welsh thing, using cheese instead of meat as the base. They worked out pretty well, although I couldn’t find any unseasoned breadcrumbs at the store, so I used crumbled up toast. The mac and cheese incident remains a mystery to me. It was going along just fine, though the cheese was taking a long time to melt into the sauce.... and when I added the pasta, the sauce all separated so I had seasoned milk coating the pasta, and melted cheese lining the bowl. Fail.

I had groceries delivered from Asda the other day, which included material for making Punkin’s meatloaf. It fell apart but tasted really good, and that’s what matters. I made chocolate chip cookies from scratch two nights ago, and aside from uneven temperature problems, they worked just fine. I’ve found that the vanilla extract I found here has a warmer flavour than what I use at home so the batter is softer-tasting. Also, there don’t appear to be such things as semisweet chocolate chips available at the grocery, but as even the most inexpensive chocolate here is quality stuff, what I found was fine.

I should also mention my favourite dining out experience of the last three weeks. We Americans went to Cabot Circus to top off our phones, because the Vodafone website seems to dislike American credit cards. After our errand, Lauren was ridiculously hungry, so we stopped at a tapas restaurant called La Tasca. They were conveniently offering a lunch special of five tapas for £10 – good for a student budget!

From the vegetarian selections we first chose a vegetarian paella, which wasn’t very paella-y but tasted fine. We then picked an aubergine dish with tomato, cheese, onion, and garlic that was absolutely fantastic, my personal favourite. The mushrooms that we next selected had been sautéed in garlic and olive oil – delicious, as you might imagine. From the meat dishes we chose to try the albóndigas, simple meatballs in a thick tomato sauce - straightforward and tasty - and their chorizo, sautéed in wine. The chorizo were very smoky but not overpoweringly or artificially so, and though they were less spicy than I expected, they were very good. Lauren ordered a simple prawn dish that was very well done. The shrimp were cooked just perfectly and the broth in which they’d been steamed complimented and enhanced their shrimp-ness rather than trying to hide it.

For dessert we tried their fresh strawberries in cream, which were underwhelming, and their chocolate mousse, which featured both milk and white chocolate layers. It was okay, but there were some texture issues. I ordered a little glass of Crema Catalana, a dessert liqueur, to go with that, and found it pretty good. I’d go back to La Tasca, just because the rest of the menu looked interesting. Their dishes were either really special (the aubergine, the prawns) or really not (the paella, dessert), so it’s a matter of winkling out the best choices. I did see on the dinner menu that Catalan spinach is offered, with pine nuts, raisins, and pear. I’ll have to see if it measures up.

Lastly, for sheer entertainment, Padma and I have turned Bollywood movies into a drinking game. First person who has to pee loses. Rules include a drink for every character called Raj, a drink for every flashback, two drinks for dramatic scenes in which the characters lie awake, and you finish your drink should any character have to obey another’s dying wish. So far we’ve seen Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Om Shanti Om , courtesy of Tesco’s rental service. Don’t fear for my liver, though, because we play with bargain juice boxes. Classy.