Janaki's Blog

Update:  Great news! Nando's has finally come to Riyadh! It’s not Nando's, but it’s the next best thing- Veri Peri Portuguese Grill ! Dear readers, you know the passionate love for the restaurant ‘Nandos’ that my family and I hold ever since we tried it for the first time in London when I was six  years old.  After we reached Riyadh, Mom searched the Internet for Nandos. No luck. Nandos didn’t exist in Riyadh. But then BAM! 6 months back, Veri- Peri Portuguese Grill started itself about a mile away from our home. We tried it out for the first time today. Can I just say it was TAS-TY.  And it’s already popular. The restaurant was teeming with people when we got there. Just like the menu said, the chicken was juicy and had our favorite Peri-Peri sauce.  The chicken is soaked overnight with the sauce which is why it’s so delicious . If you are a Nando's lover living in Riyadh (hi-five), this is the place for YOU.

Last night, for dinner, we had an Egyptian dish. Can you guess which?  (Hint- It starts with “Ko” and ends with “shari” ) Of course! It was koshari ! It consisted of rice, macaroni, noodles, chick peas and lentils topped with small chicken pieces. The noodles were cut into pieces (some people might think this is a weird combination but it is not. ) It was delicious but kind of heavy and was a beautiful combination with a sauce like salsa. Some of Dad’s colleagues are Egyptians and sometimes they buy koshari , that is how we came to know about it. We had it from a restaurant called “ Koshari Express ”. We gobbled all of it up and washed it down with a bottle of ‘Mirinda’. I remember that 2 years back in 5 th grade, one of our teacher’s told us that Pepsi and other fizzy drinks were very harmful for us and they could cut our intestine. Well, that did the trick. Whenever we had Pepsi, I always gave it the evil eye and refused to drink it. My parents as...

“Here we are” Dad announced as he parked the car in front of a restaurant called 'Bangkok seafood restaurant'.  “Thai food is served here as Bangkok is the capital of Thailand“ Dad explained. It was spick-and-span inside. There was a fish tank too. We scanned the menu quickly. All the food had funny names like ‘Goong gang’. Then we called the waiter. “Which food is good among these?” Dad asked the waiter. The waiter and he spend some time like that and I started to feel hungry. Finally we ordered ‘ Tomyam goong ’, which is soup, ‘ Pad thai noodles ’, some beef, chicken and ‘ Halo Halo ‘ for desert. Our waiter was from Nepal. Unfortunately it was a long time before Dad realized that he knew Hindi. And it would have been more easier to speak with him in Hindi, because Dad knew it too. “Hello Hello, what is that?” I wondered out loud, after the waiter left.  “It is sweet of Philippines, and it is ice cream. Don’t say it’s name as Hello Hello. It is Halo ...