How to eat real Indian Thali

A few hours in Mumbai and I got taught the golden food rule!

We found a very cosy restaurant in the fort area of Mumbai and were pretty excited to eat our first Indian dish after that long journey. Tobias and I decided to order a "thali", which is a mix out of several small pots of gravy (dal, potato and coconut-spice), plus a cucumber-yoghurt, rice, puri (a special kind of bread) and a desert. Hmmmm yammy! 

The thali is actually a perfect choice when you cannot decide for one single dish. By ordering thali, you can taste a small portion of many different dishes. I took the "small" thali for 60rps (less than 1 Euro), Tobias took the "big" thali for 140rps (less than 2 Euro).

So, the food came and I started mixing everything like crazy: pouring the sauces over the rice and loading it all on my puri (an Indian deep fried bread), dipping it into the curd, a bit of dal on top of it, some spices here, some more gravy here. And then enjoying my tasty bite.

I was almost done with the food, when the woman next to me turned to us and said: "you know dear, in India we eat  dal with rice, the sauces with puri and the curd with a spoon." Ei, it must have been so obvious that we are tourists  So from now on: Rice with dal, bread with gravy!