Like every other traveler in the world, I have eaten things I don’t care to remember. In times of hunger, I have put things in my mouth for which a small child would receive a spanking. Anyone who has ever drained a cup of Tibetan butter tea, made of year-old rancid butter and smelling like an old hockey bag, with hairs floating in it and a flavor of rank socks, knows what I mean. So on those sublime occasions on my travels when I get a chance to enjoy a fine meal, do I turn my nose up and refuse?  Not on your life.We had been bumming around India for weeks.  We had eaten in every variety of restaurant except “good restaurant.”  In desperation we had resorted to searching out the Indian version of Chinese food, which resmbles Chinese food in name only.  The Indian concept of chow mein, for instance, indicates the imagination which which some chefs are gifted when presented with the opportunity to bend the truth, and India pizza comes in a close second.  In New Delhi, we had even commited one of the great sins a traveler could ever commit, casually strolling into a Golden Arches just for the a/c.   (Have you ever had a chicken burger in a Hindu country?)    So it was that, after six weeks of noxious vapors and off-color curries my wife offered up the suggestion that we try lunch at the Imperial Hotel in New Delhi, perhaps on of the greatest hotels in the world, where a casual lunch buffet costs twice what the average field worker earns in a lifetime.  (More…..)