"hey man were rotating whats good with u?"

I bought a guidebook from "Time Out - Delhi" when I first decided that I was coming to the city for study abroad. The book is pocket-size and it's just pages of lists of restaurants and bars and clubs and shops. There's one listing that's stood out among all of the rest since day one, and you only need two words from the description to understand why I was so excited about it: rotating restaurant.

View of Connaught Place from the rotating restaurant.

I've been trying to make moves to this place for months now, and we finally went on Saturday night (after the whole Qutub Minar photograph incident). We were warned that the food wasn't that good, so we just wanted to get drinks and appetizers and rotate for a while before getting dinner at a less expensive, better quality restaurant. But rotating restaurants are awesome. Sarah and I arrived at sunset, and three of our friends met up with us later on. We were overlooking Connaught Place and could see a lot of the city's major sites, save for the dense layer of smog.

There were other uniquely Indian problems with this restaurant, besides the smog. Like when the rotating floor stopped rotating because of a brief power surge. Those are common in Delhi, and realizing that a rotating restaurant can't rotate because of power surges is a curious manifestation of a very serious problem. We also kept on losing cell phone service at strange intervals, and I'm pretty convinced that we were rotating in and out of dead zones.

The food was as mediocre as we had been warned, but the Kingfishers were cold which is really the important thing. It was nice to get together in a small group and just rotate over Delhi. Just a some quiet moments to reflect on the two and a half months we've had in this city.

There was also a silk rose on the table, for that touch of class. Obviously this meant that we needed to take some photographs.

in which all of my culinary dreams come true

It doesn't matter that I went to the National Museum today and saw corporeal remains of Buddha. It doesn't matter that we saw a Buddhist monk take pictures of aforementioned corporeal remains of Buddha with an iPad. It doesn't matter that I sat and watched cricket with my host mom for a bit. It doesn't even matter that my roommate is getting her nose pierced this evening. You know why none of that matters? 

Because I had a salad today. A delicious, simple green salad with cheese and olives and a vinaigrette dressing. No extra spices. No frills. Just a salad. (And I'm on these antibiotics or whatever sort of medication it is for a few more days, so any bacteria that I may or may not have ingested by eating this salad will be wiped out of my system momentarily. I really threw caution to the wind on this one, but it was at a restaurant in Khan Market, which is known for it's primarily Western clientele so I'm hoping I'm in the clear.)

Just let me bask in the glory of lettuce, complete with coconut water as a refreshment.