I used to love Indian food. I’d happily spend at least one evening a week wolfing down a dhal or a chana masala. Then I went to India and it ruined it for me.

Indian food cooked and eaten in India is in a different league. It’s like comparing a frozen supermarket pastizz (cheesecake) with one of the melting, flaking, hot-from-the-oven bakery delights of your favourite pastizzeria. Or a jar of Dolmio pasta sauce with a divine Bolognese in a little restaurant deep in the heart of Sicily. There is simplyno comparison.

Don’t get me wrong, we have some excellent Indian restaurants in Malta, one of the best being Ganesha in Xemxija Heights. If you haven’t tried them, you really should. But they are offering a European’s version of Indian food, in the same way that Mexican food in Europe puts the brakes on the spice and parks the fiery Mexican flavour to suit our palate.

I originally flew into Delhi feeling very apprehensive about eating anything at all, given the dire warnings of Delhi belly. I left a convert to true Indian cuisine. And sadly, despite some extensive searching, I’ve never eaten a truly Indian Indian since.

These were the high points, and, for fairness, the low. And if you’re flying to India anytime soon, bring me a curry back.

Appearances can be deceptive

Our first stop was at Bharatpur, four hours away from Delhi, where we checked into the Falcon hotel. The hotel ‘restaurant’ consisted of plastic tables on a threadbare lawn.

We ordered with trepidation, which only grew when the waiter disappeared into what we had thought was the garden shed, but turned out to be the miniscule kitchen.

But the food, oh Lord, the food! This being my first experience of bona fide Indian food, the taste was a culture shock all by itself. Yes, it was spicy, very spicy. But unlike the macho vindaloos of curry houses in London, my mouth was not simply scoured by chilli.

The fiery heat just enhanced the depth of flavour that gradually emerged after the first mouthful. There were spices I couldn’t place, a rich undertone of delicate flavours. Even the rice was better, loaded with raisins and almonds but fluffy and light.

We’d gone to bird-watch in the adjacent national park, but frankly, I could hardly wait to get back each night for the food. The Falcon had set the bar high, but things were only going to get better.

A nice cup of tea

In India, chai is brewed in huge urns on the street and served in glasses a little bigger than our shot glasses which are often on the grubbier side of clean (it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they were sluiced down in the gutter).

It’s rude to turn down a proffered tea though, so in Delhi I eventually had to throw caution to the wind, hoping that most of the bugs died when the water boiled.

The risk was worth it because the brew was out of this world. I’ve since had a variety of drinks purporting to be Indian chai in Europe. None of them come close to the aromatic blend of spices, milk, sugar and tea leaves that every other urchin in Delhi seems to be serving.

Regal cuisine

In Gujarat, the former Prince of Zainabad has a wonderfully low-key holiday property of mud-brick chalets, complete with jhoola (wooden porch swings) and locally-made embroidered hangings.

Gujarat is in the northwest of India, adjacent to Pakistan and is an area that is famous for pickles and chutneys, and for thaali,a meal consisting of up to 10 differenttaster dishes.

When we were not out bird-watching (the prince is a major twitcher), the trip consisted largely of eating. Each night, the chefs piled the buffet tables absurdly high with dishes.

The food was mainly vegetarian and cheerful staff dished out giant portions of khichdi (a comfort food of rice and lentils), saag aloo (potato and spinach curry), kadhi (a spicy soup of chickpeas with vegetable fritters called pakora in it, seasoned with yoghurt), naan breads which evaporated on the tongue, masala chaas (spicy buttermilk) and kutchi dabeli (potatoes spiced upand sandwiched into a burger bunwith chutney).

We ate seated on sofas made of dried mud, inlaid with leaves, tiny mirrors and shells and covered with Indian fabrics.

Noel noel

Having been feted with some of the finest food in the world, we were looking forward to Christmas dinner in a remote lodge near Pangot, Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas, northeastern India.

We presumed no one knew or cared that it was Christmas and that the chef would work his usual magic with the Indian spices. Sadly, this was not so.

The chef was not only fully apprised of the impending Noel, but had gone all out to make sure we enjoyed our dinner by cooking his pièce de résistance-à-la-Westerner; pasta alfredo. He was a fantastic Indian cook. His mastery of Italian cuisine was rather more shaky.

Unfortunately, since he had emerged from the kitchen to watch us eat, we were required to stage a pantomime of delight over the soggy spaghetti, which only meant that the next night, instead of an eastern traditional delicacy of spice and vegetables cooked over charcoal, we got overdone lasagne.

Once he’d exhausted his repertoire of European food though, we were back to sani hui mooli (radish with lemon) and urad dal ke padoke (deep-fried, battered vegetables).

For New Year, he rounded things off with a giant pyramid of gulab jaman . This is a treat so excessively sugary and glutinous that even my incredibly sweet tooth was sated after a couple of bites. Essentially, it’s a dough ball soaked in sugar syrup, usually flavoured with cardamom, rosewater or saffron.

It takes a brave woman to finish a whole one and seconds are definitely not an option unless you want to dice with a diabetic coma (the monkeys that steal too many of these sweets left as offerings at temples are in decidedly ill-health).

So the pyramid was missing only a couple of cornerstones when we’d finished, which made chef look a little put out, but spared our insulin levels.

Dinner for two

Things took a bit of a downhill turn in Corbett National Park. It was nothing to do with the cooking; the aromas from the kitchen were seriously tempting and the foodthat the other diners were consuminglooked incredible.

Sadly, we had failed to change any money, the nearest banks were in the next state and with our rupees dwindling, the options were “eat dinner” or “take an elephant ride to look for tigers”.

We chose the latter, meaning that for four long evenings, we were reduced to sharing a bowl of dhal (lentil stew) and rice between us to save money. It is a testimony to the quality of the dhal and size of the portion that this was actually still a great dinner.

Plus we saw the elusive tiger which more than compensated for the culinary hiatus.

Western comforts?

And so, back to Delhi, where, God forgive us, we ate at Pizza Hut. I know, I know... we should have been dining on street food, ferreting out local cafés and splurging on quality restaurants in search of the essence of Indian food. But it was late, we’d been in India for a month and it was just convenient.

It was a mistake of course. The pizza was predictably bland but the entire experience left our heads ringing. The place was full of well-to-do Indians and the average group size was over 10.

Everyone was talking at top volume,Bollywood music was blasting from the speakers and just in case the noise levels dipped for an instant to acceptable as opposed to deafening, each time someone ordered a pizza they got to ring an enormous gong, for reasons which remained opaque.

Meanwhile, beggars pressed their noses (literally) against the windows and sprang into action anytime someone left to plead for coins or pizza crusts.

We fled, heading for the markets and a hot, fried doughball straight from the wok to wash the fake tomato taste of globalisation away.

Homeward bound

Thus ended the culinary tour, providing you forget the airline meal, which I think is best.

I have one piece of advice if you’re booking your Indian getaway: forget the usual focus on seeing the Taj Mahal or the Pink City and get back to basics. In India, the only way to be led is by your stomach.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.