A doctor's gotta eat what a doctor's gotta eat

Off to India with my new handbag ..hehe

Travelled to India for lunch today. Actually, I took the bus and then hopped on the LRT. Seems that getting to India isn't as easy as I thought.

Last train to Mumbai?

My good friend Alya called me up last week and arranged everything. She decided that we should have a lunch club (name still pending..hehe). Since everybody else (her included) was unimaginably busy saving lives all over the Klang Valley, we'd probably only be able to meet once or twice a year.

"At least we'd know that our friends are having a proper lunch." Once a year! Hehe. But then somehow our lives had become as hectic as that.

I managed to arrive embarrassingly late at the LRT station (India is so far from Chow Kit) and the traffic to the restaurant was atrocious. By now, I've figured out that I wouldn't be needing my passport anytime soon because lunch would take place at Passages thru India, Damansara.

Managed to catch up on my reading on the LRT

We were just in time to see my friend Azlean leave. She had to get back to PPUM Emergency Department. Lives to save and all that jazz. So we just shook hands through the car window.

Everybody else had managed to delegate their duties to other people. Let somebody else save the world, just for today. We wanted to have lunch!

Maryam & Ruhi: A very pregnant paeds MO & a new mother/surgical MO

While everyone else was excitedly catching up, Alya expertly ordered her selection of North Indian cuisine for us. Our menu for today:

• Rogan Josh (Lamb in red sauce)

• Chicken Tika Masala

• Polak Paneer (Spinach and goat cheese)

• Aloo matar (Potato and peas curry)

• Briyani rice

• Plain and garlic nan bread

Now you see it..soon you won't

The food was amazing. I loved the Rogan Josh and Chicken Tika. It was not as spicy as I imagined. The flavours were quite delicate and subtle. The lamb was so good (not chewy and cooked perfectly so there was no trace of the dreaded 'goaty' smell) that we ended up asking for second (AND third helpings).

Second helpings of LAMB!

Ask anyone and they will tell you that I don't eat vegetables. It's not really that I don't, it's just that I am very fussy about which vegetables I do eat. So the concept enjoying of blended spinach and goat cheese was totally foreign to me. I was surprised that I did enjoy it very much. It didn't taste bitter at all and actually accentuated the flavours of the other dishes.

Alya explaining how to cook what we just ate. Paeds MO AND Indian cuisine expert?

The briyani was so good that it practically melted in my mouth (strange description for rice, I know.. but it felt that way). We also ended up devouring three baskets of nan. (Loved the garlic nan).

Rice, didn't manage to snap a pic of the nan..it kept vanishing!

It was amazing to be able to catch up with all my friends again. Listening to them talking about the hustle and bustle of hospital life made me a little wistful. I do miss the adrenaline rush. Who knows maybe after I settle my masters....

With Soha (an Egyptian who's lived here for 14 years and can converse in fluent Malay with her patients) and Nadia (a radiology MO who named her daughter Alya..hehe)

We were clueless teenagers once.. look at us now

In the end, it was a superb lunch. The food was INCREDIBLE. (Rating: 4/5) The company was SUPERB. I wonder where we will go next year? Korean anyone?