Off to Paris for the weekend...

...but before I go, here's a rundown of all the things I did in London last weekend:

Reunited with my sweetheart:



Yes, this is nothing but a good oldfashioned mall. With escalators and more than five stores and food stalls and everything. Oh, how I have missed thee! I'm not much of a shopper, but whenever things were down, I'd always find solace int eh mall. Often, I wouldn't even buy anything, but just watching teens line up outside Hollister and continuing my quest to find Petite clothes that fit me always made me feel that everything will be alright in the world. Alas, Switzerland may have Alps and cows and beauty, but it doesn't have malls! So it was time for much needed retail therapy. I went to the Westfield mall in West London and basically walked around for three hours. I exited the mall and made my way to:

Leicester Square:



It's a really nice square, very close to Covent Garden, and a Mecca for food, movie, and theater buffs like me. I had drinks with a friend and we went for dinner to the most amazingly fantabulous Indian Restaurant called Masala Zone. In the past, I have often had heated discussions on the lack of authenticity in the Indian food in London, but after having dinner here, I take it all back. The food was authentic Indian food, more from the western part of India. All of us had a Thali, which looked like this:



I loved this restaurant chain so much that I went to each one of their locations over the weekend. Everyday, I had dinner at a different location. I did takeout from their Soho location Saturday night, and after placing my order, the guy at the counter asked me if this order was for two people or three, so he could provide that many plates and utensils. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was all for just one person, so I said it was for two people. Yes, I realize normal people don't do these things. But if there's anything you know about me by now, then it is the fact that I'm not quite normal.

Flower Market and more food:

On Sunday, my friend T, with whom I was staying, met up with another friend D, and all of us went to the Columbia Flower Market, which is very close to where T lives. I love flowers, so I just walked around taking in the smells and the scents, and of course, some pictures:





We then briefly stopped by at a kids' birthday party, but since I'm secretly afraid of kids, I just went there for some cake, and D and I left as soon as I had consumed a piece. We walked around Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Piccadilly Circus. It just felt so good to be in a big city, surrounded by rude people, where you weren't the only person in the entire country who was jay walking.

D and I had dinner at Masala Zone one last time, and we met up with T and walked from Covent Garden to London Bridge, just talking about food and life and the veritable lack of hot men on this planet. It was a great trip; I caught up with many of my friends whom I hadn't seen in a while, shopped, ate, ate, ate. And now I'm off to Paris to eat some more! Crepes, here I come :)

The Soul is Happy

I had plans to blog about my second claim to fame today, but that will have to be put on hold until next week. Because something very important happened this evening. I finally had good spicy food for the first time since I landed here. And for the first time in nearly three weeks, my Soul is well and truly happy.

Someone at the Expat forum that I'm a member of organized Ethiopian dinner night at a restaurant called Abyssinia. The invite said "...cravings of this type of food can't be controlled." So I knew I would be in good company. In order to ensure that I could make the most out of this event, I went back to the apartment to change into leggings and a top, so I could eat as much as possible. I found the stop closest to the restaurant, and upon getting off the tram, promptly got lost. This is a usual occurrence for me, so I don't even bother to print directions anymore. I finally meandered my way into the restaurant. The restaurant itself looked like your cozy neighborhood joint and held a lot of promise

I met up with four wonderful women for dinner. All of them were doing some sort of a Post Doc degree in mechanical engineering, math, physics, and other awesome sounding stuff. Earlier this morning, my math skills made me think that the 8th floor was actually the 11th floor at work. So when I found out what each one of them was doing, I felt like hiding under the table. But they were a lot of fun and make me feel welcome almost immediately. All of them were American, so we bonded over our love of Sephora, and cried together over the ridiculous prices of Manicures and Pedicures in Zurich.

The food finally arrived, and everything looked beautiful! The server brought our plate in this wonderful basket:


Inside this basket, kids, was Paradise:


Hunger levels were insurmountable by the time the food actually arrived, so photography was limited to just the above two pictures. We got one veggie platter for moi, and one meat one. I strategically stopped making any conversation while eating, so as to eat as much as I possibly could. The food itself was great - the ijira (bread) was the right consistency and the vegetables were superbly flavorful. It was definitely on par, if not better, than the Ethiopian food I've had back in the U.S.

Finally, after my hand couldn't lift itself up for another bite, I rejoined the conversation. We talked about TV shows and I shared my shameful history of waking up at 6:30 in the morning to watch LOST. There was at least one other LOST fan, but she was normal and didn't do the 6:30am thing like me. We all came to a unanimous conclusion that Robert Downey Jr. was super hot and expressed our common love for various other male actors. We ended the evening after everyone looked like they could fall asleep at the restaurant itself. I managed to stay awake until the ride back to the apartment, and despite my food-induced catatonic state, wrote up this post, just for you. So now I'm off to bed, and have a busy weekend lined up, so won't be back until Monday. Until then, I leave you with images of this once again:



Guten nuit!

My claim to fame

Today was a very short day at work; I had to attend a Summit. Yes, I attend Summits now. I'm very U.N. like that. It was actually a Business Analyst Summit organized by my company for internal employees, and believe it or not, it was extremely informative and interesting. There was a camera crew, paparazzi, and celebrities. Ok there were no celebrities, but there was a guy with a video camera and a regular camera. Since I knew the organizers of the Summit, I was promptly nominated to be interviewed on camera to talk about my experience, etc. I demanded that someone do my hair and make up, that I get a big trailer with rose flavored water, ostrich feathered hand towels, gold plated door knobs, and a bouquet of red roses. I threatened not to do any interviews or sign autographs until these demands were met.

My demands were ignored. Instead, I was given a prepackaged carrot cake and a glass of water. That's ok. I know I'm not famous enough to be a Diva yet. So I had that carrot cake (and it was delish!), applied some lip gloss, and off I went to be interviewed. Because I know that this is just the beginning. Before you know it, Ryan Seacrest will be interviewing me on the Red Carpet for E!. I'm going to go practice my Oscar acceptance speech now.

Anyway, as promised yesterday, I have a restaurant review for you. Actually, it's more of a Pastry shop review. I did go to an actual restaurant for lunch today, but hunger levels were insurmountable by the time I got there, so no pictures were taken. In fact, I just ordered the first thing I saw on the display, in order to prevent death by starvation. I'll go back to this place again and do a review some other time.

Also, if you are expecting me to say things like "delectable to the palate" or "heightened state of decadence" then you are doomed to be disappointed. I will at best say "it was excellent", but mostly will tell you whether something was good or whether it sucked. So, without further ado, here goes my first ever restaurant review:

I decided to celebrate the fact that I finally have a cell phone by paying heed to my true love, food. Since this was a special occasion, I wanted to give it the proper attention it deserved. So, after much discussion and deliberation, I decided to make acquaintance with Sprungli. It’s a fancy pasty shop in Paradeplatz, which is basically the Times Square of Zurich. It’s right across from the Paradeplatz tram stop, which is where I need to get off and change trams. So yesterday, instead of just getting off and on the tram, I decided to venture into Sprungli.




The interior is very inviting; you are welcomed with sights of elegant Luxemburgerli (we’ll get into it later), bookended by chocolate based desserts. I basically wanted to buy out the entire store the minute I walked in. But as tempting as doing that is, I was on a mission. I had been told by everyone that I just had to try Luxembergerli – which is very similar to a macaroon. The key difference is that macaroons are heavier and more sweet, whereas Lux…are lighter and therefore less likely to induce emotional guilt. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of being introduced to macaroons, I’m sorry to inform you that you have not truly lived. If you are ever in New York, I highly recommend Madeline Patisarie. Better yet, come to Switzerland, we can go to Sprungli and have the better version of macarons!


After I stopped salivating at the sights of heavenly delights that I was witnessing all around, I walked around and checked out the store for a bit.
One of the most popular items after the Lux…were truffles. And really, after looking at this picture, you can see why. One look and I wanted to break through the glass display separating me and my true love. But sanity prevailed and I continued my exploration of the store. There were beautiful, prepackaged boxes of chocolate that were artfully arranged all over the store. I felt a little bit like a kid in a toy store – everything was just too pretty. The pastry shop sold mainly various kinds of chocolate, cakes, bread, and some premade lunch.



I made my way back to that what first caught my attention: Luxembergerli. There were over thirty or forty different kinds that I could choose from. I battled my natural instinct to buy one of each kind and settled for four of my favorites: cappuccino, hazelnut, champagne, and pistachio. I wanted to buy four more, but that would have required transferring everything in a bigger box, and there was just too much thinking involved in the decision making process. I also reasoned that since the store isn’t going anywhere, and I’m certainly not going anywhere anytime soon, I could always come back for round two, three, four…

I also did something that will make you proud; I exercised restraint! Contrary to popular expectations, I did not open my box and gobble up the Lux on the tram on the way back. Rather, I waited. Not only did I wait until I got back to the apartment, I also took pictures, just for you! So without further ado, this is the box. And inside this box, kids, is heaven. A heaven that you may have heard of, but never seen.




And this, this is why we were born. This is why we are on Earth. To consume this.
Each one melted in my mouth faster than the previous one. The cappuccino had a distinct flavor of coffee, hazelnut tasted hazelnutty, you could definitely taste the pistachio in the pistachio, and alcohol could be tasted in the champagne flavored one (I told you that this ain't no New York Times restaurant critique!). My favorite was a tie between cappuccino and hazelnut. It was light enough that I felt I could eat eight more, but filling enough to put my gluttony at ease.

By the way the little white piece of paper on top of the box reads, “To be consumed as soon as possible.” I took that to mean, “Eat it within the next hour.” So I did. Only later did I learn that it actually meant, “To be consumed now, or can be refrigerated and eaten upto three days after date of purchase.” But let’s be honest – do we really think THIS could have survived in my fridge, uneaten, for three days?