Expanding Our Taste Buds

We have been adventurous with our restaurants lately. The last two weeks we've gone out with DH's co-workers from when he worked at the Veterans Hospital. I guess after spending so many hours together working that you find out alot about each other. Two weeks ago one of his co-workers took us out for Sushi. She is originally from China and although we both have eaten sushi before it was nice to have her there to guide us through new selections. Well DH anyway. Don't worry anyone - before you gasp that I ate Sushi, a cardinal rule not to do when pregnant, everything I ate was cooked and not too scary: fried shrimp rolls, fried calamari and fried crab rolls. See, I wasn't too adventurous. It was a fun time and the group of 8 of us decided the next cuisine to try was Indian.

Then last night we all went out to an authentic Indian restaurant - Taste of India - with one of his co-workers originally from India. What a fun experience. We both have never had authentic India food. We started with samosa and vegetable pakora for appetizers. Samosa is potatoes, peas and very mild spices wrapped in a pastry and fried. Vegetable pakora was shredded onions, spinach, potatoes, chick pea batter cooked into round balls that looked like meatballs. For entrees I had Chicken Rogan Josh over rice. It is chicken in an onion and tomato based sauce spiced with cinnamon, cardamom and clove. DH had lamb vindaloo, which is lamb and potatoes cooked in a tangy, spicy tomato based sauce. Of course we had to try Garlic Naan (a yummy bread). We liked it all. Last month I had a good friend and her husband move to India for 18 months. I've been following her adventures through her blog, http://stabeworld.blogspot.com/. And couldn't help but think of her during my first India cultural experience. :)

Next up, thoughts have been shared to try authentic Russian cuisine. A third year medical student who worked with the group is orginally from Russia. Bring on the Borscht!