At 6 am I was awoken by the cacophony of a murder of crows screaming outside our room. It was quite interesting as it sounded as if they were trying to imitate each other.and develop into a choir. It was so loud. Then the call to prayer was blared out at 6:12 am. The crows stopped for a few seconds, then redoubled their efforts. At about 6:45 someone down the road cranked up their stereo and played Tamil love songs. Not that I don’t like music, it was the hour and the volume. This was followed by a pack of dogs barking like mad, which is quite unusual for street dogs, and more crows, topped by cows walking down the lane mooing. Could not get back to sleep.
The Blue Moon Guest house offers breakfast at 9 am each day. It consists of yogurt, bread, hard cooked egg, bananas, butter, sweet chutney, and milk coffee that is piping hot, I mean it, screaming hot! It was a filling and delicious brekkies.
After eating we, sadly, had to packed up. We took a photo of our new friends and slung our packs on and headed downstairs.
In the photo, from left to right are: Saravanan (proprietor), a helper, Sanjay (jack of all trades), me, and John, a Brit staying at the guest house.
We got into a tuktuk with our packs, still down’t know how it all fit in there, and headed over to our new place. On arrival at. Mamalla Hotel Inn, the proprietress met us and said, “Good news! You can have the room for 2 nights!’ We were taken to room 302 and the porter turned on the AC and we were surprised at how quickly it cooled down the room. The room is huge, king size bed, 3 places to place luggage, TV, private balcony, but no view (some sacrifices must be made).
We wandered the new area looking for something to eat, hit Babu’s again, and again, closed at 2 after lunch. We ended up at Moon Rocks, which is a conglomerate of the two neighboring Moonrakers. The place was hopping! We were taken to the 3rd floor AC’s dining room which was filled to capacity with 2 extended Indian families. It was a delightful scene. We ordered beer, and were told to put it down on the floor again, as it was Republic Day and liquor was not to be sold. So munch for rules here! As we were waiting for menus, our server went off to get the “specials” of the day, meaning fresh sea food. While we were waiting, I saw a massive fish on a platter go by that looked delicious. It was a snapper in a red masala paste. Our server returns with a platter of snappers and the largest warm water lobster I have ever seen. Huge. The tail was curled under and it must have been at least 10 inches to the top of its head! I was wondering how old that guys must have been.
We opted for one of the snappers done in the style of the plattter that I saw. This is what came to the table
Without any hesitation, that was/is the best fish that I have ever eaten. It was spicy, but in a way that makes you keep eating it. It wasn’t a searing spice, just an inviting tingling that left you wanting more and more. I kept pestering the server for how it was prepared! It is first fried, then the paste is made, ginger and garlic, mashed up and fried, add 2 types of red pepper, coriander, turmeric, salt, black or white pepper (your choice) and then coat the fish, and fry some more. I can not express how good it was. Perfectly cooked, and even though it was a large fish, we were both hoping for more! So sad to see it gone.
After that, a walk about, and back to the new hotel, snooze, and we meet up with John and Ben, 2 Brits we met at Blue Moon for dinner. Wasn’t much hungry, but went out for the company!
On the left is Ben, and right is John.
We started at Sea Shore Garden, and they brought out more fish as the catch of the day. None of use were wanting fish, but they didn’t have anything but tonight. Drank some more beers and left. We ended up at Le Yogi, a strange place that had table on the floor with mats for seats, and standard tables. They had an extensive menu and strangely enough, I opted for pizza, Bill got a calzone, Ben ordered a sizzler plate, and John got the chicken butter masala. Each of us was happy with their choices.
These two guys were interesting and easy to spend time with. Perhaps they will come to NYC and visit us sometime.
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