The Versatile "yoghurt rice"

After doing the rounds of calling everyone back home, me and wife decided to go for brunch to a gujarati restaurant "sukhadia" here in Iselin NJ. We wanted to try Gujarati food. The only consolation to the ordeal was the mango lassi (which we had 3 glasses each) and yoghurt rice. No disrespect to Gujarat and its famous thali, but the food was really so so . Saturday buffet constituted paratha,pav bhaji,bhel puri,kadi,lassi,some veg curry,curd. Frustrated with the food, wife decided to mix the rice with yoghurt and eat it with the veg curry. Like a lion pouncing upon a juicy african thomson's gazelle for sunday feast, I instinctively grabbed a serving of curd rice from her plate. Hmmmmmmmmm! what an item ! I followed this two more times after which wife kindly requested me to go get my own food !

Anyways, I tried explaining my wife why yoghurt rice was one of the most versatile delicacies. Wife must have been impressed with my lecture suggesting that I post it in blog and so here goes :

1. Curd rice is an amazing coolant for the complex digestive system. Every spicy meal should end with a sumptous serving of curd rice to "cool off".
2. My own experience with curd rice has proven that it has an amazing ability to get itself around the tiny gaps in the tummy even after completing a full 4 course meal (paruppu,vetha kozhambu,sambar,rasam thereby providing a feeling of a complete meal. Due to this, one can usually have a sumptuous serving of curd rice even though it comes at the end of the meal.
3. Curd rice can be taken with almost any side dish (kozhambu,poriyal,thokayal, pickle, even paruppu during desperate times).
4. For those bachelors living on hotel food on a day to day basis, it is strongly advised that they begin cooking at home with this simplest of preparations. I myself had a bad food poisoning experience back home in chennai and due to my lack of awareness to preparing even sambar or rasam, I took to having curd rice with pickle for several weeks till mom felt it was time I graduated to atleast paruppu making.

There could be many other virtues of curd rice that other folks could share with me. But the above observations clearly point curd rice as a winner in the versatility category.

Need to snooze now....which btw is the only side-effect of this wonderful item.

In my next blog, I will provide my review of Indian hotels in and around Edison, NJ.

ciao.