Dilli Haat and what we eat


On Sunday we went to Dilli Haat, a pay-for-admittance shopping area with craftspeople from around India. In this post I also talk a little bit about what we've been eating.

I found Dilli Haat to be somewhat of a bust. Perhaps it was because we got there early, and many vendors hadn't yet set up their wares. In fact, we were there so early (10 a.m. is early by Indian standards), we had to wait a half hour until the gates opened at 10:30. Luc and Claire passed time by playing around two huge stuffed elephants, as seen in the picture below. Marion and I got some chai from a chaiwalla walking around with his teapot and kerosene stove. It was our first purchase of food or beverage from a street vendor. But the chai was quite hot, if not with a faint kerosene aroma, and the cups were plastic (though I could not confirm they had not previously been used), so I suspect there's nothing to worry about. It's Monday night now as I type, and neither of us has gotten sick.

Marion got Claire some painted elephants that hang from a ribbon. They can decorate her room in our flat in Kerala for now, and her new room back home when we return. That was all we bought. There were some other nice items, like furniture and sculptures, but nothing we could haul around for the next six months or easily ship back now.


Having raised the concern about drinking the chai from the street vendor, I should write a bit about what we're eating. Several times we've ordered from, or sat down and eaten at, Sagar, which I mentioned in an earlier post. Marion made fried rice the other night, we've eaten pasta at least one night, and Marion and I have eaten some packaged Indian dishes available at the market (not unlike the packaged Indian stuff you get at Trader Joe's, though I'd say tastier and probably cheaper).

For breakfast, Marion and I have muesli warmed with soy milk (we can even get Silk, but it's three times the local brand of soy milk), and Claire has Corn Flakes. I'm including a picture of the box because it cracks me up that it's advertised as "powered with iron-shakti!" I'm not sure what shakti means, but we drove by a battery store the other day with shakti in the name, so it must have something to do with energy.

I've also mentioned how cold it is in the mornings, and how our dining area is essentially outside, so I thought I'd include the picture above in which Claire eats her Corn Flakes with iron shakti while wrapped up in her blanket. Luc hasn't shown much of an interest in the Corn Flakes, so he usually has a banana and if we have a croissant or muffin he'll have some of that.

Claire gets a lot of treats when we're out. I think I mentioned this before. For the most part the treats are rewards because she has been really good. Today we went to a market that had a gelato stand. We were told ice cream is safe to eat as long as it is commercially made and not, for example, from a soft serve machine operating on the street. Well, the gelato place was in a relatively fancy market (when I say market I mean the group of shops making up a shopping area) and so we started sampling and ordering without thinking much about it. By the time I was a few bites into my Baileys flavored gelato, Marion noticed that the server was rinsing the scoop with tap water. No one drinks the tap water in Delhi. I have no idea how much tap water one would need to consume to become sick, but I took the risk and finished my gelato. Claire would not be denied her grape sorbet, so she and I are part of an experiment (we also shared the chocolate chip gelato Marion had ordered for herself).

The only other items we've bought from street vendors are bananas and peanuts. I guess it was the first time Claire ate peanuts from the shell. She kept calling them coconuts, and then paused at one point to explain "I like coconuts, they even have peanut butter inside."

Posted: Mon - December 12, 2005 at 07:31 AM          

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