Do you like to travel? Do you like to eat? Are you intrigued by what it is like to travel the entire country and taste different delicacies? India is in fact a land of foodies and also a land of a wide variety of fine cuisines. And who doesn’t want to know more about what is served in some popular corners of the nation?
What if you got a chance to go through one of the most popular food destinations of the country and know about the delicious food served over there? Does that sound good? Can it happen with you? Yes, it can! Well, you can experience all this through the pages of India on My Platter.
India on my platter is a sort of journal prepared by Saransh Goyla who is a chef and got a chance to work on a T.V. show to travel around the country and taste different food. The book has a log of each day he spent while working on this travel cum food show. And I happened to receive a copy of this book and today, I am going to share my review.
Apart from the very interesting “Around the world in 80 days” sort of concept, the book, India On My Platter, has a lot of recipes shared by the chef. The recipes in fact represent different Indian cuisines with a special touch by the chef.
The recipes in the book are very well defined and would be loved by a person who is into cooking. While reading the recipes, you would definitely feel like running to your kitchen and trying out the recipes.
The book, India on My Platter, is full with knowledge about India. There are a lot of restaurants mentioned in the book that are famous for the kind of food they serve and a lot of places and famous tourist destinations over there. In fact, it would definitely work as a good guide for a person who is willing to travel to India.
But then that’s what it is. A boring guide just like the guides we used to read in school. Reading this book is just like taking in the words written, with no emotions and imagination possible. You would read author describing how emotional he felt at a point and you would be like – “hmm, okay”. You read how ecstatic a place is and you would be like – “hmm, okay”. You would read his ramblings about the T.V. show and you would be like – “hmm, okay” and after one point, it would become too unbearable and all you would want is to throw away this book (just keep the recipes).
I couldn’t help myself and compare this book to the Rearview: My Roadies Journey by Raghu and see how awesome that book was. When he described his experience with a particular place, you could feel it. When he described something about the show, you could feel it. But India on My Platter is void of emotions and anything interesting.
Considering the guy is a professional and a popular Indian chef, I had at least expected he would define the food well. But apart from the recipes, there was nowhere I actually liked reading about food in the book. No expression in the book made me drool or want to eat that toothsome food.
There are different ways to express a same thing in written form and the author has chosen the worst way. So worse that I actually cursed myself for still trying to finish the book. I slept, snored, sobbed but this book felt like that dreadful long journey that seems to be a never ending one.
As I took this book, India On My Platter, with me while my trip to Delhi (which I regret so much), I asked one of the person travelling with me to share his opinion about the book. In fact, it was he who was intrigued to see what could be so boring in the book that I had to doze off after every 5 minutes. After finishing 20 pages, even he was being lured by slumber.
Yep! The book is so boring that you would rather sleep or do the last thing you would ever want to do in your life instead of reading it. And then people ask me why I shun Indian authors? Because some of them just don’t understand that you write a book to make readers enjoy and not to make them want to kill themselves.
Overall, this is a book I would never recommend to anyone unless you want a badly written travel or food guide.
My ratings: 2/5
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