You'll listen to me blog about food and you'll like it

Tonight, after a hard day of wandering the city on foot, calling real estate agents and buying booze--more on that later--I set out in search of dinner. I had planned on buying Indian food, because I had been fondly recalling a trip to India with the Fiance of the Blog. Lonely Planet, which has kind of a half-assed Web site, directed me to India Palace, right up the block.

Well. Problem No. 1, Al Salaam Street, where the restaurant is, is completely torn up north of where I'm staying. I mean, it is walled off, impassible, a huge morass of construction workers and heavy equipment operating 24 hours a day. I have no idea what they're installing there, but it looks like it will be massive.

I found my way to a little sidewalk between where the street used to be and the storefronts, though. But when I arrived at the restaurant, it turned out to be a pretty high-end joint. And I was not in a high-end state of mind. Not to mention I was wearing a T-shirt that had taken 5 or 6 kilometers' worth of abuse from my walking around during the day.

So I kept going. Eventually I found an Indian place that was just my speed. How did I know it would work out? It was filling up with Indian guys coming off shift at the construction project. And as I sat there eating, I was hit by yet another bolt of surreality (they are flying out of the sky at a stupendous pace these days): I am eating Indian food, with Indians, in the Middle East.