Our Humble beginnings

First Official meeting of the Ethnoculturcist Society, when it was still going by the name 'Ethnic Night'. Soon after it became the Ethnoculturcist Club, and as you all well know, I am not one to compliment Chad often (if ever) but it is only right to credit him with the name of our group. It was his illustrious brain (and the fact that he was unemployed at the time and had all day to think about it) that came up with the name. We all thank him for that. (but his still not the Grand Poobah C)

Location: Simla, 304 E 78th, between 1st and 2nd aves.

Indian food. Yummm. As official documenter of the event, I failed early on. Didn't remember to take pictures till all the food was gone. In my defense, the food was very good, and the four of us inhaled it all pretty quickly. It was like a frenzy, a force of nature. Very much like what i would assume a cannibalistic tornado would do. If tornadoes had intent, and a hunger for meat.






There it is, the tornado made flesh.........................


I cannot tell you the date we visited this wonderful establishment, it was some time ago. I am late in beginning this blog to detail out the locations hit by the food tornado. As such, I'm not sure that I can remember the dishes we ordered in detail. I will try to recall for you, so that if you were interested, you could attempt to simulate the wonderfulness. I doubt you could be successful.

We began with samosas, as we always do with Indian food. A good place to start, especially with that yummy green sauce, which is a beautiful color, and I still have no idea what its made of.

For the main meal, as always, the staple of Chicken Tikka Masala. Apparently a favorite among the group. (not my favorite, and in my opinion the dish with the weakest showing at Simla, but here I will meet argument from the other members of the group) We also had an amazing chickpea dish, which I believe was the Chana Saag, that though Chad scoffed at the idea of vegetables, it was met with resounding approval from the entire group. I don't think there is anything that Michael won't meet with resounding approval, so it may be a moot point to even add his culinary opinion.
The third dish was possibly the Chicken Kurma, or maybe the Lamb. I don't recall. The last was a beef, which was met with interesting theological debate. Is it proper to order beef at an Indian restaurant? How ethnically sensitive are we trying to be? Not at all in reality, seeing how the 'cist' at the end of Ethnoculturcist is borrowed from the word racist. So we aren't necessarily going out for food with the full attempt to be doing anything more than eating and having fun. But I still feel that Indian food with beef is just plain wrong. Funny flavors for starters, and just entirely un-sympathetic to the true nature of Indian food - they would never eat Beef Curry in India, they don't eat cow! (as lovely as cow is, they maybe should abandon old superstitions, and just eat the damn cow. yummm.) In the end we did order a beef dish, but it was a bit too spicy for Becky, who has a very weak spice pallate. (But we still love her despite her flaws.)




We followed dinner up with what is a very un-ethnic dessert. Cupcakes. At crumbs. These things are monstrous. Erin's belly (both the internal organ, and the external flubber) have decided that those cupcakes are far too large and happy only at the onset. The aftereffects are not always desirable. Though I think Michael is going to attempt to eat one in just one bite. Not as difficult as it may seem, he's eating one of the small cupcakes. The larger requires forks, or spoons, or maybe a good spork. Sometimes even a knife.