Dalma

One of my good friends and fellow bloggers asked me why I don't write about food in my blog. This is a good question. Food is such a huge part of culture, and normally it is my first entry point into a country that I visit. Dumplings in Hong Kong. Pho in Vietnam. Pisco sour in Peru. My feet tend to follow where my stomach wants to go. However, since i'm living on a university campus, a few kilometers from the main action of the city, it is most convenient to just eat in the canteen.

Make no mistake, the canteen is the epitome of uninspiring food. Its shortfalls are similiar to those of most eateries that mass produce food. When you try to accommodate to a variety of tastes for the cheapest price, you get medicore results. Not terrible. Certainly edible. But pretty boring. Every day we have yellow daal (lentil soup), rice, some kind of mixed vegetable curry, a chutney and cucumber salad.

But all the while that I have been enduring the canteen, I've been trying to hatch a plan to get authentic Oriya food. I have asked people on campus where I can get it, but they mostly point me in the direction of five-star hotels (which, by the way, don't have Oriya food) because they are the most hygenic. Then I found out there is a restaurant called Kalinga Cottage. Since "Kalinga" is a former name for Orissa, I thought I'd have luck there. That thought was absolutely incorrect. The restaurant has a nice assortment of North Indian dishes. But then two friends from Bhubaneswar and my supervisor recommended a place called Dalma to have Oriya food. Apparently, dalma is a special Oriyan dish, often called the poor man's food, which mixes daal with veggies.

So tonight we went to Dalma for the first time. On the waiter's recommendation I ordered the veg thali (a plate with a small selection of a variety of dishes), as it was meant to be the most authentic. I was nearly giddy for it to arrive. The service was fast and within 10 minutes or so, the waiter placed my meal in front of me. It was yellow daal, rice, mixed vegetable curry, a chutney and cucumber salad...oh and a small helping of dalma.

That's right, I've been having Oriya food the whole time and didn't know it. The saddest part is that I think the food at the canteen is actually a bit tastier.