South Indian Food
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Only hours after debaucheriously finishing a C Train pub crawl that turned out to be more of a drama show than anticipated gong show, we saddled up for Calgary’s South Indian Association Food Festival.  Most the restaurants in Calgary are representative of North Indian cuisine with very few South Indian dishes on the menus. There is a vast difference between the two. Northerners are known for their naans and dishes that look stew-like. South India cuisine features more seafood, more coconut and is often served on banana leaves. (matt)

Once again....its wonderful when word of your bizarre curry-fetish hobby gets around.  I got the tip from this one from my dad and immediately called up Matt to book him for the night.  Often Matt spends his sunday evenings doing absolutely nothing so it's essential to call early and make sure he hasn't committed to that.  (ren)

The chosen venue for the festival was the Silversprings Community Center. I can’t say I ever spend too much time at community centers. There usually isn’t anyone there. And if there is, the activities rarely impress me. I just don’t know how much “drop in gymnastics” I could possibly do before going insane. Certainly not enough to justify PumpHill/BriarHill/Palliser’s fifty dollar annual membership fee. (matt)

I should be so lucky...the Tuscany club is something like $250 a year (i can't remember) and membership is a requirement of living in the neighbourhood....at least they could give me a charity tax reciept....  And I don't think they have drop in gymnastics either....  At least then I could climb the rope over and over and over.  (ren)

We got there early and it was lined up outside the door. As one would expect at any Indian function (North or South), no one seemed to really know what to do OR more accurately, everyone seemed to be in charge. After shelling out $20 for 20 food tickets (we had no idea if this was enough or too much), we proceeded into the gymnasium where more chaos would ensue.  (matt)

It wasn't too bad...we were lined up out the door...but as it turned out we were really only about the 4th or 5th group from the front....seemed like a lot of folks brought the whole family out for the event. (ren) 

There were 6 food stations with various South Indian specialties. Unwisely, they put the most popular of the items (Idli Vada Sombar) next to the entrance. It was a fire hazard for sure. Because we hate people, we left the aforementioned “IVS” line and went immediately to the Chicken Dossa (aka chicken pancake) line; only to be told there was a 10 minute wait for dossas. Begrudgely, we returned to the Idli Vada Sombar Line.  (matt) 

It was a little strange and disorganized to say the least.  All the food seemed to be getting prepared in the same kitchen....and they tried to spread out the stations for ordering from.....but they seemed to have misplanned which dishes required more prep-time vs the desserts and sweets which were probably pre-made but were still located the closest to the kitchen door. (ren)

Idli Vada Sombar appears to be a spicy lentil soup served with deep fried onion rings and dough sponges. Here’s a photo. Note the combination banana leaf and prison cafeteria tray.

According to Wikipedia, this dish as actually a breakfast. According to me, this dish is too spicy to be a breakfast. It definitely had our noses running, requiring us to spend 2 tickets on bottled water. We also ordered Bonda, which were very tasty and quite spicy, although all I kept doing was picturing James Bond, Peter Bondra or possibly Jane Fonda eating curry.  (matt)

The soup was very good.  The dough balls were.... doughy....but they were good for dipping in the soup.  I have no idea if thats proper or not.....but hey...I do what I wanna.  The bonda was very nice....Kinda like the perfect half-way point between a veg samosa and a pakora.....   Not too big but stuffed full of tasty goodness.  (ren)

They clearly did not have the seating arrangements worked out in advance since there were no tables to sit and eat your meal at and only a random scattering of chairs were available. Ren and I ate most of our meal on the floor near the fire exit until one of the organizers came and told us not to block the emergency door. I resisted pointing out the blatant safety violation at the entrance. (matt)

The seating was definitely limited....The whole thing seemed like they had planned for it to be a “come-and-go” tea kinda vibe....(I don't think i've ever attended a come-and-go tea....but i think my mom talks about them sometimes....).... but no-one was going.  I'm sure they were well over the max people allowed in there but whatcha gonna do. (ren)

After finishing our IVS, we used our remaining tickets on giant Jalepeno Bajji (which translates from Indian as “My life is doomed and fried in Tempura”). I had trouble eating mine because it was thermally abrasive. Basically it had just been pulled out of the deep fryer before being tenderly delivered to my plate by one of the 39 women in saris working like slaves in the gymnasium kitchen. They had removed most of the seed before battering the pepper, so it was actually quite palatable until I got to a section where they got distracted by something and forgot to remove the rest of the seeds.  (matt)

The bhaji was huge...I've had potato ones before and they're very good...like battered potato chips.  But this jalapeño must have been on steroids....it was freaken huge.  And very tasty.  Once I let it cool off enough that I wasn't getting my mouth burned from the temperature of the thing it was very enjoyable.  Like matty said it was mostly seedless, but what was in there was potent.   (ren)

We took a brief look at some of the displayed Indian art before forcing our way out the front door of the auditorium. We were shocked to find that the number of people waiting to get in had blossomed from 15 to about 200. This clearly indicates that the curry revolution has begun. Look out Vietnamese Subs! There’s a new favorite in town and his name is Bonda!  (matt)

I'm glad for the organizers that this event was so popular.  It's too bad though that they completely underestimated the turnout and were so disorganized in general.  One thing I noticed was there were lots of people there who just wanted to sit and chat with friends and family they hadn't seen in a while....they could have probably made things run much, much smoother just by setting up another room for the groups like that so it wouldn't be in the way of the food and fun.  (ren)

We heard through the grapevine that they ended up running out of food. Never a good  idea to have a food festival and have to turn people away. Imagine if the Bavarians ran out of beer at Oktoberfest? Disastrous. That being said, those who didn’t get to eat probably won out in the end, since for the first time in two years of reviewing Indian restaurants, both Ren and I developed obvious food poisoning. I had to call in sick for work 2 days later due to abdominal cramping, diarrhea and fever. Ren faired no better and required antibiotics.  (matt)

Yeah...I mean its fairly normal, especially after you do something completely bat-shit insane like eating a pot of vindaloo,  to have some GI distress the next day.  I was still a mess 6 days later with stomach cramps and bloating and diarrhea.  Most suprising of all was that we experienced this after eating all vegetarian dishes.  I'm gonna blame this on poor storage and issues with heat during transportation since we still have to review the restaurant that appeared to have done the catering for the event.   We'll give you a final verdict after we try out “Southern Spice”.  (ren)

Overall the food was tasty but we can’t condone advertising an event like this in local newspapers only to a) turn people away hungry, b) poison those who actually got food or c) violate fire codes. That’s just not nice. This food fest gets a 5.

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