Care for fried watermelons, anyone?

Stale bread topped with Amul cheese spread topped with Kissan Mixed Fruit jam finally topped with undercooked potatoes. I developed a taste for this dish when I was not yet a teenager in boarding school. Must have been something about the mountain air that made such horrendous trespasses thoroughly enjoyable.

When I went home from school for the holidays, I craved this same mad combination for breakfast, turning up my nose at eggs and hot-buttered white bread (whole wheat and brown bread came later, you know it).

That phrase ‘one man’s meat…’ must have emerged from a situation like this. Who knows what floats someone else’s boat. Taste is a mysterious thing. And not everyone explains why you can’t have one with the other.

Remember when you were little and the family would go nuts if you playfully suggested washing down a grilled pomfret with a banana milkshake?! “Noooo, you’ll get leucoderma!” Still amused by the memory of those paranoid cries.

Someone told me a couple of days ago that they miss the taste of winter tea that is served at a corner of their hometown because the milk was thickened with biscuits. Glucose-D? This got lodged in my head. The discussion was on India’s GST (Goods and Services Tax, people. Read the newspaper, will you!). And this person said that the tea at that street corner hadn’t become more expensive, just the quantity had lessened. At least the proportion of milk to biscuit was the same. Just that eight sips had become five.

Milk and biscuits though isn’t an unusual pairing. If you say you’re sprinkling turmeric on it, fine, okay, we’re getting somewhere.

Over the weekend, I went to this Indonesian restaurant, Betawi (in JLT) for lunch (there’s also a branch in Karama and at Emirates Towers, I read on their menu-placemats).

People had been raving about the place for a while. Felt like a fool when I had a bite and turned out, the

Every time I taste an unusual pairing, it’s interesting how it sticks in the head. The first time I had watermelon and feta cheese. The first time I had mango with raw fish

ravers were right. Felt especially foolish that the restaurant’s been around since June 2015 and that this was visit one.

One of the highlights of lunch was the desert. I hadn’t eaten ‘Martabak Manis’ before. It’s a not-toosweet pancake. Key ingredients: cheese with chocolate and peanuts. Verdict: yum.

While we’re on the topic of JLT though, what is up with that dead fish smell emanating from the lake opposite cluster D?! Thankfully, it’s too hot to sit outside but totally negates the food fragrance. Outside ammonia and rotten eggs, inside chocolate and cheese. Eugh!

Every time I taste an unusual pairing, it’s interesting how it sticks in the head. The first time I had watermelon and feta cheese. The first time I had mango with raw fish. Hey, the other day, a friend told me about a desert at AB’s barbecue — fried watermelon! What? Yeah. I said, this must be like when we first had fried banana at a Chinese or Thai place. Now routine, then novel.

This morning, for breakfast, I emptied the Mother’s Recipe ‘poha’ in a ‘flat pan’, following instructions and poured 180ml of hot water on it. It was fine, soft, cooked. But something was missing. Even after the lemon squeeze, and extra peanuts that I roasted separately, I felt the need to customise further so I scooped half a quite blackened-looking avocado on it, carefully turning the nicer, greener, less rotten looking side towards my face for the sake of the food blogger curse: the pretty, palatable ‘optics’.

I wonder what our favourite, most sedulous pairings say about us. Or if they say anything at all. Like, I can’t deal with Spanish omelettes. No egg and potatoes for me, ever, please. What I will any day take over that: crunchy apples with peanut butter. Unlike the awful school jam-potato-cheese bread combo, this one doesn’t get old. What I am having trouble wrapping my head around, is Coco Cola Chicken. One man’s meat, I guess, really is another’s bone.

nivriti@khaleejtimes.com