Sea House and Poppadums (and our kitchen!)

Morning people! It's a bright beautifullll day and I'm in a verrry good mood. I am glad that so many people visited the Democracy Fair at Dharubaaruge and enjoyed it (and boogywoogied to the Olympians' music). I am also glad that the vote of no confidence against the Foreign Minister, Dr. Shaheed, did not pass (because he knows his stuff, and we all know what that is). And I am more glad that the current opposition just keeps on getting more ridiculous everyday (besides, I find the notion of them being a productive and sensible opposition ridiculous itself).

Sin is still too busy to write anything, so here I am again. Ah, bear with me :)

Last weekend Sin and I stayed up to watch movies. We watched Numb (starring Mathew Perry, and not as funny as we'd thought it'd be) and Money Talks (old one starring Charlie Sheen and Chris Tucker, and quite comical). So anyway, we got hungry at around 4.30 am and headed off to Seahouse, the infamous 'happening spot' over the Hulhumale' terminal (thank god that place stays open all night! I've lost count of the many, many times we've run there starving in the middle of the night). It was still a bit dark and the streets were almost empty and so peaceful. There was a nice breeze, and when we drove past the sea looked so beautiful i wanted to go in for a swim.

There were just a couple of people at Seahouse at that time and the music was soft and subdued. We ordered 2 frech toast breakfast sets (eggs sunny side up, sausages, juice, tea or coffe and french toast drenched in honey) and coconut pancakes (strangely they didn't have the normal pancakes on the menu so we decided to be bold and try the coconut one). The french toasts were yum and the pancakes, to our surprise, were big and scrumptious. They looked more like rolls than pancakes though, but the coconut filling went well with maple syrup. We'd recommend the french toast set at Seahouse for a filling breakfast, especially if your tummy starts rumbling in the early morning hours when no other places are open! The french toast set gets a 7, and the coconut pancakes get a 7 as well. I'll make an extra note of the surroundings there because it was so lovely to have breakfast while watching the sun rise and the world waking up to another beautiful day. You could even see some really enthusiastic people jogging (that is what I call dedication! it amde me feel slightly guilty hehe) and some at the 'masveringe park' enjoying a bit of fishing in the morning.

After the breakfast and a little drive around Male', we slept all morning and woke up later in the day. After the usual household chores of laundry and cleaning (or trying to atleast), we had a half hour debate about lunch. Finally we agreed on Indian and ordered garlic naan, mutton rogan josh and chicken tikka masala from Poppadums, this Indian restaurant on Ameer Ahmed Magu, somewhere near Majeediya school. Since they don't do delivery (ahhh they should!) we went by to pick it up. We thought 5 would do for both of us, but that was way too many. 3 naan would do for 2 people I think. The mutton rogan josh was really really nice, with a spicy thick sauce. The chicken tikka masala was quite hot and Sin's eyes got all watery (Sin's not much of a hot spice person), but it was delicious with the naan. I would have liked the naan to be just a lil bit more crispy, so I rate it at 5. Chicken tikka masala gets a 7 and mutton rogan josh gets a very well deserved 8. Overall, the whole meal turned out very well indeed. The portions were generous and the prices reasonable. If you're in the mood for Indian food, we'd definitely recommend these dishes from Poppadum. We're not very enthusiastic about sitting there and having a meal as the set up is not so, well, pleasant... so we'd say take out is a better option. However if you do end up eating at the restaurant, do try the mango lassi. It's divine and gets an 8.

In the evening we went shopping to Fantasy store because I really really felt like cooking. We couldn't find much variety of meat or juices or milk (the tasty ones) and were quite disappointed (we also note that Fantasy is relatively pricey). We ended up just buying bread, parsley and oregano leaves, an assortment of nuts (i luuuurve nuts and seeds and dried fruit and all such things) and some frozen veggies. Next we headed to Agora where we got meat, bread, milk, juice and baskin robbins iceacream (honey and nut crunch flavour).

Cooking is quite an exciting thing for both of us, since we're so new at it and the whole process always ends up like quite an adventure (mostly a hilarious one!). We defrosted 3 chicken breasts and diced them. Then we covered the pieces with spice ('lonumirus havaadhu'- i wanted to try the tandoori masala but Sin vehemently disagreed) and a little bit of flour, and fried them in olive oil. By the time the chicken was done we'd decided to make the rest of the meal simple. We made noodles with veggies and a bit of soy sauce and chicken stock. The noodles turned out more salty than we expected and we had to squeeze in some lime (oh well, we tried :) ) but the chicken was quite yummy. Topped off with orange juice (the brand we like is called Faragello - I think it's Egyptian, and its avbailable at Agora)and some ice cream, the home made meal wasn't all that bad and we were quite pleased.

I think I'd rate our chicken a 7 and the noodles a 5 n half. Orders anyone??