Better written than read

Better written than read

                Lucha Loco, Quesa, Flan, Teek Mai-Tai  - do these make any sense?  Places? Persons?Dress? Well, desist from a request to read them aloud. These are the menu served to us on the colourful  street side deck of a Mexican restaurant in Philadelphia in Pennsylvania state where we went on a wild tour last Saturday. Besides being very delicious ( should be served hot straight from the kitchen) they were unaffordably high-ticket. Idly, dosa, upma, rice, rasam, poriyal, sambar, theeyal etc. were strictly limited to domestic consumption and once you cross the threshold of the house, you are exposed to infinite variety of multi cultured cuisine that is very difficult to identify and of course beyond the layman comprehension. Left by yourself you could do nothing but stare at the menu and cower behind your escort. Then you are at the mercy of the benefactor, dutifully savouring the complex dishes in front of you and take a gamble of your likes. If you are fortunate enough, your body language shows, if not, you move yourself to a silent zone, curse your fate, swallow what you could benumbing your taste buds. But there is another advantage. You could always improve your culinary vocabulary. I have learned words like bagel, waffles, croissant, dumpling, fries and muffins to name some. I think this menu would suffice to baffle my wife and friends to prove my familiarity with my foreign expedition. At least this much is an adventure to take back home.