Category: Eating Out

After arriving in Bangalore, I was getting very hungry, but I had food on British Airways flight BA119 landing at 4:30am in the early morning. At least I will miss the rush hour.

After a couple of hours sleep, Ashlesh my host collected me withe his wife Monica, a lovely sincere couple, and took me to the hotel where the PhotoReading Course will be held, to arrange the layout of the venue.

It took quite a bit of discussion to convince the hotel conferencing manager what I wanted in table layout was going to work, perhaps they had not such a strange trainer as me.

The pangs of hunger got to us all in the end and we ventured to the roof garden, and the catering manager chose the food for us with instructions of not too spicy.

An array of foods arrived, a chicken dish, bitter god vegetable dish, something else in a sauce and rice, followed by a chocolate fudge with ice cream. I did not find the chocolate fudge, but I assured it was. Perhaps it had gone the same way as my chocolate cake I left in Istanbul one night. The meal was finished by mouth refreshers, small seed-like items, the best tasting of aniseed, and certainly refreshing.

Stay & Work hotel I am staying in. Again chicken, this time with chips and garlic bread. Interesting. I am hungry again and it is only midnight.

                                             

My arrival back in the UK will give me two days of rest before the trip to Bangalore for a PhotoReading course, on one of these days is a Bank Holiday.

The work that I do now means I have left the 9 to 5, Monday to Friday working environment. I work any day, any hours, anywhere. So I do not know what day it is sometimes.

It seems that I do not sleep in the same bed, the same town, the same country, for more than ten days.

The food that I eat changes. Although the ingredients are the same, with variations in ingredients and in the vegetables (grass), I will eat the same meat, mostly tasting of chicken. What differs is the way the food is prepared and presented, the combination or selection of the food on the plate, are there potatoes, chips or rice, and the spices used to change the tastes, from salt to chillies.

Where am I, what day is it? Sometimes I do not know.

One of the first exotic (to me) countries I traveled to many years ago was Singapore, on a trip to South East Asia.

As we came into land at Singapore’s Changi Airport, we flew over hundreds of ships moored at sea, waiting to take on fuel, load and unload goods to be shipped to all parts of the world. 

We drove into the main city center to my hotel, passed high rise apartments, on what seemed to me a very crowded populated but extremely clean country.

I felt I was breaking into new worlds, like the presenters who produce the travel documentaries on TV.

The illusion was broken when I came across a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant take away. It should have not been there, this is not Great Britain, how can KFC be in another exotic country? I get the same in Turkey. How can there be a Domino’s Pizza take away, Marks and Spencer, Top Shop, Zara in these far away countries?

It is said we are becoming a global village. It is true. Walk down any High Street in the UK, and you will see the same shops, selling the clothes, electrical equipment the same good, at the same price. Walk down the main shopping streets in major international cities in the world, you will see United Colours of Benetton, Zara, Top Shop, McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, they are all there, charging the equivalent prices. No longer it seems do you get cheap goods, unless there is a change in currency rates, or they are counterfeits.

But you do get consistency, the food is the same, the presentation is the same, the taste the same, I know what I am going to get, and if I cannot speak the language I can point to the menu. Sometimes like a bit of the UK, what I have grown-up with, what I am used to.

So I had a Nado’s Chicken yesterday. Their restaurants are in many town in the UK, serving the famous PERi PERi sauce, made with some fiery little chili combined with special herbs and spices, lemon and a touch of garlic, giving its unique flavour. Chips, oh chips. My mouth watered.

I took the last flight back from Istanbul, Ataturk Airport to London’s Heathrow. The Ataturk airport seemed empty, well it was Saturday night, not a high demand period. I wondered what would happen on this flight.

I went to the departure lounge with some time to spare, so I wrote the blog English Course – My last day with them and nearly missed the flight as for once they did not announce the departure over the public address system.

Boarding the aircraft, which was not full, I walked up the isle, and knew that someone else was sitting in MY seat. It was mine, I had booked it earlier on the internet, 12A wing exit so I had lots of leg room, and the youth sitting there pretending to be asleep. Not for long, a quick tap on his shoulder, and showing him my boarding card seat allocation. He protested that he was in the correct seat, but I stood my ground, no language from me, just pointing at my ticket and the markings above his head.

Loads of thoughts raced through my mind:-

“If he was in the right seat, and we had been double booked as happened before, they may upgrade me to Business Class, but too many empty seats for that, and I want a window seat, and he was in mine, I want my seat.”

I stood my ground. Noticing that the seat in front was empty, 11A, narrow and someone in 11B. He was not happy, but neither was I.

I stood my ground, I had paid for the flight, I chose my seat early’ and I have a Gold Elite frequent flyer card. I want my rights.

Eventually, he admitted defeat, stood up and moved to his allocated seat, looking around as he went for another seat he could claim. The man behind smiled and said that I was smooth in way of moving him.

As the meal was being served, I pondered what would be available, as the gentleman in the isle seat got a special meal early, perhaps a vegetarian. I decided I would have a white wine, after all the hard work I had been doing over the previous two weeks I deserved something special.

The trolley got to my seat, and the flight attendant looked at me and started to move away as I caught her eye. She said why didn’t I want a meal? My reply was that I had not been offered one, yet. There was not one left in the trolley.

Oh Poo Poo.

Frantic signals were exchanged between her and other flight attendants, eventually producing a meal, but I had no choice. What ever it was it tasted of chicken. Nothing different from all the other meals. Click to see other meals.

The joy of flying. Yesterday I flew from Milan to London with Alitalia.

The flight to London was due to leave 16 minutes ago, but we are just sitting here, on an extremely hot aircraft, for what we have been told another thirty minutes, due they say to traffic congestion.

After what seemed an age, we left the aircraft stand, only to kept in a holding area at the end of the runway. But not for too long, the engines picked up, and we soon sped down the tarmac runway. The force from the engine thrust the plane accelerating to take-off speed, at which point my seat reclining mechanism decided not to support me, and I found myself in a fully reclined position. It was very uncomfortable, (seat 14L AZ0230 9/5/07 if Alitalia should read this), and now I can appreciate the announcement by the flight attendants to put the seat in an upright position for takeoff and landing.

Not long after getting into the air flying over the beautiful Alps, food was served. This time not in a box, but on a tray. Still a sandwich, with I think some kind of omelet inside. Also with the sandwich was a jam tart, the pastry thick and hard, interesting taste that satisfied my hunger.

Well my case arrived, but we had to wait a long time before they came tumbling down onto the conveyor belt, which meant that my taxi driver had to wait even longer for me and thus charged me waiting time.

Oh I love flying.

Monday 7/5/07.

An early morning start, at 4am to catch the 6am Alitalia flight to Milan.

Food on board Alitalia seems always to be a sandwich, a cold drink, (I like the red orange juice), plus a piece of cake and yogurt, all in a green box. A choice of tea or coffee is offered, but weak tea and powdered milk.

There never seems to be any other food available other than the sandwich with a thin sliver of nondescript meat with a spread of cream cheese I think. At least with the no-thrills airlines, like Iceland Express, easyJet and Ryan Air there is a choice, firstly of having food or not, (if you want food you pay for it), plus there is a choice of food available, and served with a smile.

I was determined to take a photograph of this offering to put here on the blog, but for the first time I was told not to use a digital camera whilst in flight, I have not heard of that rule except during take off and landing. Perhaps the flight attendant had had too early a start like me.

Some service people like to make up the rules as they go.

Because of changes in course requirements in Turkey, I decided to change my flight dates. My ticket allowed changes, but only with the airline itself. I rang the airline to be told that there were no available seats for my desired flight, which was one week away. This could be true, and when I asked for flights the same day and the previous day, there were still no seats. I contacted my travel agent, (James at the Flight Center, Kingston), and asked them to check availability. There were seats available on all flights.

The saying if at first you do not succeed try, try again.

This is true with the airline in question. I was told it is always best to try until you get what you wanted.

I waited a couple of hours until the customer service representative would be going home or in a better mood, and tried again.

“Yes sir, that is done. Is there anything else I can help you with?” another helpful assistant replied.

My faith in the airline was restored until I had this sandwich for breakfast.