I brought Japanese curry to my friends in India last month, which was chicken curry (boil-in-bag). They loved it as one of my Japanese friends had told me before. I was not with them when they were tasting that Japanese curry. So I asked some question another day.

“How did you know how to cook it?”
“I saw illustration on behind of bag, how to cook. Then we boiled the bag.”
“Great. But how long did you boil it?”
“Half one hour…”
“…It’s too long, you know? So how was that?”
“We really loved it! But I put some salt. After that, it was perfect!”

Japanese “spicy” chicken curry was not working for them??

Another Japanese food, I also brought SENBEI, which was Japanese snack made of rice. One of my friends were interested in it when I was eating it.

“What are you eating?”
“Japanese snack.”
“Hmm…it is vegetarian or non-vegetarian?”
“Kya(What)??…well…there is shrimp inside, it means non-vegetarian food…”
“Then I will take it. Thanks.”

I had never minded if SENBEI is vegetarian or non-veg food. And it was little bit strange that non-vegetarian asked me about it. I can understand if he was vegetarian and cared about inside of food though…

My Ukrainian friend were suffering from differences of food. He didn’t like spice at all. Only few dishes he could eat were Momo (Nepali Dampring) and Tukpa (Also Nepali noodle). There were no spice inside. We could find these food easily in New Delhi but after left there, his food life got worse.
When we were in Amritsar, which was near the border of Pakistan, he had almost nothing to eat. Even vegetable soup was not accepted by him. He saw us, my Malaysian friends and me, as if he were looking at alien when we were eating spicy Indian food. He ordered “Non spicy” first few days but after that his way of order was changed to “No spice”.
He was in Goa now. I hope he could find Nepali foods or continental one. (Surely, it must be easier to find them in Goa.) Good luck for his delicious food life.