What are your favourite railway station food memories?
Mine would be taking the 205 bus from home with my Grandpa when I was around ten, reaching the ferry pier at Calcutta after 45 minutes, taking a launch, reaching Howrah station, going to the first floor balcony, quietly gazing at the Ganges, having a HP apple juice and a sada dosa at the station and then returning home with Dadu to my grandparents where we lived for a year.
And years later, waiting in front of the Nescafe stall at Churchgate station waiting to ‘accidently’ bump into a colleague from my office whom I married a year later.
A close third would be Bern station where we have run to for the last two days to escape from sleepy Interlaken.
Heady sweet maternal warm baking smells wafting around the station welcome you the moment you get off the train. The station is full of cafes with Hansel and Gretel’s favourite pastries, chocolates, cookies, brownies and quiches and snack bars too.
I had the most amazing sugary chocolate and milk cookie with a cappuccino after getting off yesterday.
Today I learnt the virtues of patience and discipline. Didn’t eat at the station after we got off in the afternoon. We started to walk the streets of this Unesco Heritage town instead
Wandered into a meat shop cum takeaway called Kauffman. We had little portions of a very nice penne carbonara, salmon canapes and something which they were a bit wary of serving me. The lady kept saying ‘wild’ and made little horns with her fingers by her ears. Figured out that it was antelopes in a brown sauce. A new addition to horse steak for us. And unlike brittle horse meat, antelope was quite tender and juicy and fatty.
Walked a bit more and suddenly felt like an ice cream. I looked left and saw that there was a cafe called Guant Gellateria. K and I proceeded to have a lovely chocolate and cheese flvaoured gelato. As Kainaz said, it represented the best of Switzerland in a waffle cone.
This was after we stumbled into a little market place where K had grapes with pits while I tasted a slice of cheese.
A couple of hours of winding walks later we landed up at Migros (the local mall, something like Hypercity in Mumbai) where we had cappuccinos and I had a quiche. I’ve been averaging a quiche a day at Switzerland. Had it for the first time at Geneva station and figured out that the quiches back home at Candies, Glorias and American Express were sad jokes. The quiches here are so cheesy that I can hear Jerry squeaking behind me when I take a bite.
So energised after a day of aimless walking we are back at the internet cafe we discovered yesterday. Making the day stretch before we head back to dreary Interlaken.
