VCN Ethnic Dinners go to India

(click pictures to enlarge) The 11th Ethnic Dinner took the VCN ED crew back to India, which was last visited for Vietnam, and, for the first time, saw the event co-organized by two persons: Andrea (right) who dealt with the restaurant and myself dealing with the email exchanges and information. Honestly, hadn't it been for Andrea (who, coincidentally, joined the group at the previous asian dinner), the dinner would had never taken place as I was too busy with what's going on in my office and my leave of absence' request.

The restaurant chosen was in the middle of the Monti neighborhood, not too far from my office and in one of the most downtown zones of the city. The name of the place is "Guru" and it has the misfortune to be just two door next one of the most famous (and expensive) indian restaurants of the city, the "Maharajah". The restaurant, in my opinion, comes out well in a comparison anyway. It's small, tidy (as it was noticed even by the most careful ones among the girls of our little company) and the only bad side is that the place feels hot, perhaps even due the spicy food, and the waiters didn't help by forgetting to turn on the air conditioners.

The menu was a mix of meat and vegetable dishes, spicy but, according to the most sensitive ones of the table, "just as much" (and served with a series of sauces, just in case someone wanted to enhance or dim the spiciness). The vegetarians got a couple of separate dishes just for themselves.

Unfortunately, the names of the actual plates are unknown, but we started with a green soup which was really appreciated, followed by two different kinds of vegetarian croquettes which vaguely reminded of arab felafels. The first meat came in the work of Tandoori chicken and some spicy chicken balls. Then it was the time of rice, three different kind of beef meats presented in several different sauces (one in particular of these dishes was in absolute my favourite).

The food, it must be said, was not only of good quality and excellent taste, but so abundant that much was left at the end of the dinner, as it hadn't happened since the last peruvian dinner. Some indian beer was also present on the table, but I cannot say much about that as I didn't try it.

The company was less numerous than usual, maybe due the very late announcement made (on friday) or the summer period not encouraging evenings spent within 4 walls. Fact is, we were a pretty manageable 15 people, made of 6 italians, 2 each for Canada and UK and 1 from Brazil, Egypt, USA, Philippines and the Netherlands.

At the end of the dinner, everything was almost ruined by an idiot driving a Porsche speeding in the narrow streets and bumping with his rear-view mirror against Rachelle's elbow. Nothing serious, luckily, but still...

Anyway, next stop, probably, Argentina!