The food is delicious!

I've been in Chennai less than 72 hours and I've already had several excellent meals.

On Jet Airways I opted for Indian vegetarian meals, and had one with okra as the main dish, and another with eggplant, two of my favorite vegetables in Indian cooking. The dishes were served with a mixed vegetable dish, rice, lentils, raita (a savoury Indian yogurt condiment) and hot sauce on the side, so that diners could choose the amount of heat they wanted in the dishes.

On Friday evening, I went with co-workers for an Indian buffet at the restaurant in the Fortune Select Palms, Chennai hotel, situated at the IT corridor. The food was fresh and carefully prepared, and included tandoori chicken that was tender and very flavorful. Our conversation focused a lot on cricket. India was playing the West Indies in London and most eyes in the restaurant were glued to the large screen TV on one wall, or the projection screen TV in the adjoining courtyard. My Indian co-workers made a valiant effort to explain the sport to me, but I think I will need to make more of an effort to figure out the rules.

I'm fortunate to be staying at the Taj Mount Road Hotel, which has three excellent restaurants: The Club House, which is open 24 hours and serves a wide variety of food, Beyond Indus, featuring North Indian cuisine, and Kefi, specializing in Mediterranean food. So far I've been eating at the Club House because it's hours are convenient for our schedule.

Easo Johnson is the executive chef at the hotel and he is credited with introducing Thai food to Chennai. On Sunday afternoon he gave my co-workers and me a Thai cooking lesson, so we donned the cooks' orange aprons and followed him into the kitchen. What a treat! He prepared 5 dishes for us: lemongrass soup, chicken, fish in oyster sauce with basil, stir fried vegetables and fried rice.

Thai food uses a lot of ingredients. In addition to well-known Thai seasonings like basil, lemongrass and red chilies, our chef also uses white pepper, plus imported Thai fish stock cubes and fish sauce. I learned that Thai cuisine uses LOTS of chopped garlic (I'm guessing 1-2 cloves per serving) and that adding a little bit of sugar to the sauce will temper the heat from the chilies.

Chef Johnson expertly prepared our dishes and we enjoyed them very much! Thanks Easo!