McDonalds Home Delivery and other Perks of Bombay

There's a number you can call in Bombay and say, "I'd like a Big Mac delivered to my office, and make it snappy," and a young sikh shows up at your door with a fanny, pack, a flannel shirt, and some delicious fast food for your lunch. That number dials the phone in the local McDonald's, and that young sikh is this dude:



What he brought me a few days ago was not your typical Big Mac. It was the MacMaharaja chicken burger. For obvious reasons, Mickey D's does not serve beef, except in Pakistan where they're antagonistic like that (back in the day, Muslims used to parade cows past Hindu temples on the way to the slaughter house... it was pretty cool...).



I also ordered a McVeggie burger, which I'm told is inferior to the McAloo Tikka Veggie McBurger, but I wasn't feeling that adventurous. Would I like fries with that? (the guy actually asked me that on the phone). I would.



The verdict is this: Fries were excellent, crisp and salty, but the McVeggie was rather bland. It had a mayonnaise sauce on it that had no zap to it, and my lettuce was wilted. The McMaharaja Chicken fared better, but the meat was nowhere near as high-quality as the breast stuff they put in Wendy's or Burger King burgers -- it was more like the chicken patties they used to serve us in the Allderdice lunch line: thin and moist. Overall, McIndia beats American McDonald's, but isn't as good as McSpain or McMorocco, both of which I have enjoyed in my international fast food sampling.



Next up is the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), which used to be called Victoria Terminus because it is modelled stone-by-stone on London's train station of the same name. Around the time that those rascals in the Shiv Sena party turned "Bombay" into "Mumbai," they changed the name of this station into the name of a 17th century Marathi king who nobody except Indians has heard of (gosh!) but who is automatically awesome, because he was known as the "Rat of the Deccan" by the Brits. The building is Venetian Gothic Revival, which I know because I read wikipedia.



"Another side of Victoria Terminus..."


And inside. Get a load of those interlaced vaults!




This is a fun shot... It's one of the many "Goods Carrier" trucks. I put one with Hindi lettering in that last post, here's the English version...



And on Saturday evening, I stopped by the Gateway of India, a massive stone arch built to commemorate the landing of some King back in the 1920's, I think. I don't feel like looking it up on wikipedia right now, but you can, if you want.



The people line up to hop on ferries that go to Elephanta Island and other destinations. Last week they lined up to see Brangelina, when they took a break in their busy paparazzi-choking schedule to visit some other parts of Bombay.



Here's the gateway by night. Very pretty. I had some delicious street food right near here, but blogger is limiting my pictures-per-post number again, so I'll blog about that later...



In case any of you care, I've added a THIRD blog to my repertoire. I don't run this one, I just contribute to it sometimes. It's called mumbaidailyphoto.blogspot.com. It's interesting, and run by my friend Karilyn, who works with me at Dasra. Check it out.

Happy Thanksgiving! Yinz have no idea how much I wish I had been home. Well, actually, any of you who have ever seen me eat may have had some idea.