Indian Food

As we made our way across the Pacific we were perpetually asking “can we spend a little more time here?” After ~10 years of putting off today’s desires in favor of tomorrow’s dream it was finally time to say “Yes, why not!” The down side to this was that we knew that every extra day we spent in today’s paradise would be borrowed from tomorrow’s. You can only defer for so long before the cyclone threat starts making your choices for you. So that’s how we got into our current state of mind. For the last few months we have resigned ourselves to the fact that Fiji (the islands that everyone raves about) would be merely a quick stop to meet up with our long lost friends Krister and Amanda of s/v Britannia. We even decided to skip the lauded Astrolabe Reefs in Kadavu in favor of getting a few days closer to Britannia. ...

I would guess that more than half of the average person’s enjoyment of food is subjective. There are clearly objective thresholds that must be met (and those differ from person to person) in order for a meal to be enjoyable. I would argue though that what sets the exemplary meal apart from the good, for most people has to do with atmosphere, service, and other intangibles. Gaylord’s nailed the subjectives. Perhaps they didn’t need to even try. So completely overwhelmed, tired, hungry, and hopeful were we, perhaps any place would have brought a contented smile to our faces. I ordered off menu (paneer tikka masala) and my dad ordered the lamb roganjosh. The staff were omnipresent but somehow not imposing. When the food arrived it exceeded all of my expectations and all of my prior experiences. At this moment (it was my last substantial meal) I would believe that it was the best Indian food in the world.