It is our last night in Hanoi and we decided to venture out of our hotel and "discover" a restaurant serving Indian cuisine.
And that's a funny thing that happens to you as an expat. When we lived in India and travelled abroad for work or vacation, we steered ourselves clear of any restaurant that served anything remotely Indian. We reveled in exploring local fare, savouring it as locals do.
Now that we've relocated abroad, we still revel in enjoying local fare wherever we travel, but we crave for Indian fare so much that we do end up in Indian restaurants sampling how the Indian diaspora has adapted itself here, serving as ambassadors of India's incredible but understated soft power...
And the front desk staff highly recommended a restaurant called Namaste Hanoi nearly a kilometer from our hotel, in the Hoàn Kiếm area. The way they spoke about it, it was evident, that the locals loved the place...
Walking towards Namaste Hanoi, we came across this neighbourhood performance of some song and dance by some little Vietnamese girls...
Kids enjoying a streetside meal...
A Slice of India in the heart of Vietnam...
Interesting that their menu talks of "louder Namastes in the streets of Hanoi"...
Most patrons here in the restaurant were Vietnamese, a testimony to the popularity of Indian cuisine in Hanoi...
And the best thing - they serve both North Indian and South Indian fare - they have chefs from these regions. Indeed, these are the guys who maintain the incredible value that our soft power has on foreign shores...
And my spirits soared when I realised that the South Indian chef was from Trichy (Tiruchirappalli), a place I used to visit so often when we were in India. And it was Trichy that rekindled my love affair with South Indian cuisine...
A North Indian thali...
Neeti's idli sambhar. We went completely berserk here, ordering a masala dosa as well, but as you probably guessed it right, we devoured it in no time, even before we could take a pic...
Who wants a pic? Who wants Nirvana, when there's so much good food around? "I Don't Want Nirvana! I Want Great Food, Always!"...
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