Balls Deep…

The guest house director/head waiter/cleaning staff/tour guide/19 year old ambassador of the one and only restaurant in Mangan, Northern Sikkim saunters over to our table wearing his best Britney Spears t-shirt and sweatpants.  He tilts his head in the sideways nod that, in this particular situation, means he wants to know what my companion and I want to order. He also fills the quintessential position of sou chef and official bartender. How about chicken butter masala, egg curry, garlic prawns, plain rice, two beers and veg pakora (fried veggie patties that look like mini hockey pucks with green and orange slivers throughout the tan, fried deliciousness). The interaction includes lots of pointing to the menu. Again, the sideways head nod. With a slight smugness he reveals the current secret of the town and probably a big reason why the two of us were the only tourists in this tiny one street village: No fish. No chicken. No eggs. No beer. Tikk (fine)- veg pakora. I look at my friend. So what is there to eat after 90% of the presented menu instantly becomes unavailable? There’s bird flu in Sikkim. All the chickens and their unborn omelets have been slaughtered. It’s definitely time to get creative knowing full well that experimentation can only go so far when pork remains mostly off-limits due to a quasi-religious self-imposed dietary selection. And is also mostly unavailable.

Three days, two nights, one restaurant: So what’s your beef? Presenting the Top 5:

5. Beef momos

4. Beef chillie

3. Pork sizzler (if the adjoining party eats the pork and leaves the veggies and rice around it)

2. Beef curry

1. Beef roll

*************And now presenting the first goballsdeep survey!!!**************** (from someone who doesn’t eat lowly bottom feeders or cloven hooved beasts,  except the occasional sice of baccon at breakfast or a juicy lobster at any opportunity while visiting family in New Brunswick)

Silly Question: Is pork, in fact, the other white meat? Or is that just false advertising? And as a follow up: If a person’s diet consists of only white meat and someone eats pork thinking that he is following the food rules which could go one way or the other depending on the outcome of question #1, can he sue? This is a serious conundrum.

Sikkim is the only state in India, so far, where beef has been available to order.  Indian cows walk unphased through the throngs of bikes, rickshaws, cars and trucks that clog the highways of New Delhi and Hindus risk their lives to save their four legged, milk-producing friends. 

Sikkim, in the Eastern most part of India, happens to make sacred cow parts available for mastication.  It is of poor quality, tough, presented as chewy morsels in various sauces and toppings.  A wise man explains that Sikkimese cows work their whole lives pulling plows in the fields, using their muscles daily as opposed to slowly fattening up on quality green grass and feed (while hopefully escaping injections of BGH). Westerners, with a grandiose sense of entitlement, treat their cows specifically to gorge themselves on thick, juicy, fatty, delicious slices of tissue. In Sikkim, we travelers injest the three times daily Mangan diet of tough bovine protein as a  blessing.  At least there is something to eat.

beef jello -  not available