andamu

[ Parry's Corner ]
In an archived post, Nancy mentioned Parry's Corner. What an intriguing mix Chennai/Madras is of the exotic and mundane, speckled through with English (British) place names and buildings.
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Parry's Corner. Hmm, we lived in Adyar and seldom ventured there, except for this one place - some Gujarat Bhavan. Kind of daylight basement level entry, one room off to the side with long narrow wooden benches along a narrow table, and then the counter in the room in the far back corner. We have to weave our way through the scooters and motorcycles parked under the building behind the ornamental bars to get to it.
We bring our tiffin carrier along, and they fill it: usually some channa masala (whole chickpeas in a thick spicy gravy), a liquidy aloo preparation (potatoes with tomatoes and a surprising bite of chilli), some dhal (lentils, usually urad and mostly whole, not split), and a khadi - all of course with some measure of jaggery. Ten rotis if you order for two, more at a surcharge. One pint container of wonderful, must-have-gone-to-heaven srikhand, the gentle golden color of the real saffron so different from the artificial orange of the store-bought variety, and then my absolute favorite. From the old blue refrigerator outside the door (godrej?) a 1.5 litre PET bottle filled with the smoothest mango pulp. It would last for a week in the freezer section ofour red godrej, so thick and rich you could have even less of it at a time than the srikhand.
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Now mpo points out (and Nancy confirms in her reply to my comment) that this is not strictly speaking in Parry's Corner, but more generally in Georgetown, about a quarter of a mile away.
Still, not bad for a faulty memory. I think the only other thing that really took us that far north was when we had to go and see an advocate to prepare all my papers to extend my residence permit.
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Nancy, in a Gujarati household, casually mentions that "Shrikhand is very easy to make at home." My opinion? All things are relative. For me in a Telugu household, it is not that easy. First there is the fact that mpo dislikes sweet stuff (with the exception of his coffee and tea of course!) Perhaps I should rephrase: It is not difficult to make srikhand at home. It is difficult to make good srikhand at home. I've made srikhand, a few times in fact. The results are so-so - it looks like srikhand, it mostly tastes like srikhand, but pretty blah srikhand. Probably better than the Amul pseudo-srikhand sold in tubs in grocery stores, but not much. Which is why it is always wise to have either a good Gujarati restaurant nearby, or some really good Gujarati friends - preferrably both!