What's for Dinner?

Geordie and I have only one night left here in Kovalam and last night went out to dinner at Fusion, probably the best restaurant on the beach. We dressed up in our finery and had a lovely evening within sound and the sight of the Arabian Sea. Of course we wore our new shirts both made by the same tailor in a back alley of the town. My shirt is orange silk with a blue tree shape woven in, while Geordie's is white cotton with a band of gold. And just for you, here we are.



We began dinner by having a pretty expensive drink, but it was necessary because it was called a Bees Knees, which is the name of our daughter Holli's online children's knitting patterns website. Two pictures here, the second one shows the detail on Geordie's shirt - such finery.






Dinner was from the very extensive and creative menu - Fusion offers three different menu options, East, West and Fusion. After the Bees Knees Geordie ordered Asian Calamari from the Fusion menu, which came with lovely crusty calamari whose batter had a nice spicy kick, served along with nice crunchy stir-fried vegetables and basmati rice. I got to taste one of the calamari, which was delicious. The small bowl on his plate is a dip of soy, lime and chili which added nice oomph.




For my own meal, I ordered from the Eastern Menu - a bowl of very tasty chunks of fish in a rich sauce of coconut milk and pureed lentils (which I would have called dal, if I hadn't been told differently) as well as chunks of tomato. It was quite delicious, rich in flavour and certainly spicy too. Thank heaven for the big mound of basmati rice to help cool my mouth.



We decided that since we were already going all out we would have dessert too. From the Fusion menu I decided to have the Stewed Apples with Chili and Cinnamon, topped with Vanilla Ice Cream which was a revelation - hot as hell, cool as heaven. The fruit was chunked and still warm. The dessert was decorated with a whole stewed chili and a sliver of the cinnamon stick. I avoided chewing on either. I'm sure I can recreate this recipe at home; I just have to make sure I'm careful with the chili flavour.



Geordie's dessert was Grilled Pineapple with Vanilla Ice Cream which appeared in what appeared to be a cast-iron bowl, heated under the grill, set on a ring of twisted rope and underlain with a white paper napkin which had been artfully torn to create a rough scalloped edge. The pineapple was lovely, but the ice cream was melting furiously so Geordie had to gobble it up fast. I did get a taste before he finished it though, as he got a taste of mine.



Our table held a flower decoration I thought you might like to see. There must be huge marigold farms in this country because the flowers are everywhere. This lovely bowl contained fresh golden marigolds as did decorations at other tables. On the floor nearby was a large bowl, about two feet across, full of marigold blossoms too with a small butter lamp glowing brightly at its centre.




Tonight we are going to have dinner with a couple we met at our hotel. Marilyn and Trevor are from St. Ives which of course always sets me off with the nursery rhyme, but I've resisted reciting it in their presence. They are well-travelled too, and have whet our appetite to go back to Turkey. They talked glowingly about a place they stay there called Dalian (can't guarantee that spelling) where they rent a cottage set among lemon groves. Doesn't that sound heavenly.

I'll wear my newest just tailored shirt which I picked up yesterday. It's in white with both a gold and a silver stripe in the material, (all through, not just as trim), but I doubt that will show up well in pictures, of which there are none yet anyway. I had the tailor modify it from a short sleeved shirt, asked to have a collar added, and got him to measure for the neck and sleeves. I'll wear it tonight so may get a picture of it then.

I'll leave you here with a couple of images from this morning. I discovered that I have a panoramic feature in my camera so took a photo showing the palm grove but used a close up and also got a couple of people in the shot for the first one. The second is one of our neighbourhood raucous house crows. Hmmm, reminds me of home, although these crows don't really look exactly like the ones we have at home. The crow is a little fuzzy, but you will get some sense of how it looks with its grey neck and its relatively skinny body. They are just as noisy as our crows though and they flock in the evening making lots of noise in their chosen trees.




By the way, some of you may not be aware that you can click on the pictures here and get to see a larger version. Unfortunately the images are much too big for the computer screen. Have fun exploring.