Omelette Raja

An Eggcellent Unlikely Hero Steps Forward

Mrs Parsnip turns to me, eyes wide, face impressed. Someone has left two tiny chocolates on our pillows. Posh chocolate. And they’ve folded back the duvet, dimmed the lights and plumped the pillows. It is the Easter long weekend and we’re at a resorty type of place in the Algarve, Portugal. Given that dodgy Airbnbs are more our usual vibe/budget when travelling in Europe, turn down service with chocolate is not what we’re used to. I make the beds at home (“you’re so much more talented at this that I am”, coos winsome Mrs Parsnip strategically) so this is a nice break.

Nevertheless, I am a bit grumpy. We’ve just spent a week being rained upon in Lisbon (see earlier post Last Night in Lisbon ), the weather in the Algarve is even worse (storms approaching) and I’ve got to that point of the holiday where I miss home and my bed and my comfy yellow reading chair. Also, the food in Lisbon was amazing and as a city kid (remember Hanoian Rhapsody) being away from the madness of a city to a place of peace and tranquility is weirdly discombobulating. And the food does not seem particularly exciting here. Sigh.

I am still grumpy when we wake up the next morning. A typhoon rages outside so we’re going to be indoors for the morning I reckon.

The long-suffering Mrs Parsnip, who is very familiar with The Hangry Husband Playbook, suggests we go down for breakfast. Fine, I say, let’s. Ah well, at least there’s a breakfast buffet. I love a breakfast buffet. At home, we make the same old oats and coffee every morning, so slow walking along the long table and peering at every chafing dish and the holiday vibey ability to have multiple options is most welcome. I bypass the yogurt section, pass by the aisle of a thousand cured hams and end up at the eggs counter. It is a live station and there’s a young Latino looking chap doing the whole eggs made to order thing you’d expect at a place like this. He’s talking animatedly in Portuguese to a woman wearing pince-nez glasses and flirting with some of the older guests who are giggling as they instruct him.

I stand there, undecided, debating between scrambled, fried or an omelette. The blokes who were there before me get their omelettes and walk off, chatting animatedly about the right way to store Botox in their freezers. Omelette guy looks at me expectantly. I smile and shrug, to indicate that I am being indecisive.

“You from India”, he asks? I am taken aback. Shades of brown can be confusing.

I confirm that I am, and we have a whole conversation about where we came from and how we got here. He’s been here for 4 years, taught himself Portuguese via his flatmates, and once he gets citizenship he’s going to backpack through Europe and hopefully end up in Germany and start a kebab shop there.

“Why Germany?”, I ask?

“Arrey Why not?”, he says?

“Why kebabs?” I ask

“White people don’t know aloo tikki” he shoots back

He asks again if I want an Omelette (“boss for you, I make Desi style”) and my entire culinary life post 2008 flashes before my eyes. How I yearn for the Omelettes of my youth. Indian style, with sharp diced onions (red, never white) and cubed tomatoes and all the masalas in the world. Egg mix blessed with finely slit green chillies (seeds included, yah wimps) and salt, pepper, garam masala, turmeric. Wolfed down with mega processed, square white loaf bread, anointed with generous lashings of butter and heated on the same pan used to make the eggs. No multi seeded sourdough back in 90s India. Bonus points if eaten on an overnight sleeper train and accompanied with sugary sweet chai from a clay mug sold by an old turban wearing geezer in between train stops.

My taste buds and I have adapted and changed and we are now very different to whom we once were. I hated miso the first time I tried it and now I’m all “shall we do miso aubergine” as a side dish. And the Pescatarian Owl and I routinely go for Ramen (“no meat for me, mofo”). I can use chopsticks and am no longer weirded out by Sashimi or tartare and all of these other marvellous things. But once you’ve had an Indian omelette, there’s no going back. Full points to the French takeover on the mainstream commercial narrative on how to make omelettes. Good for them. Or the Japanese omu rice where the eggy bits come oozing out onto the rice. And the Turks and their Shakshuka and Menemen and all that other good stuff. And the whole asparagus dipped into gooey egg soldiers thing. But my globetrotter heart has, even after all this time, stayed loyal to the Indian masala omelette.

I eggcitedly say yes to him and he gives me a thumbs up. While he’s whisking it all together and the onions are hissing on his pan we chat some more. He says his English is not great but he’s trying by watching Friends (“that Rachel, she too good for that Ross”). He tells me he can’t quite come to England yet (“separate visa, too expensive boss”) but if he did he would, despite his English, manage a conversation with Charles.

“Who is Charles?” I ask, confused.

“Bro your new King, big man in England with big Buckingham house bro”.

I love the kid’s confidence. Omelette Raja has, despite being from a very tiny city a gazillion miles away, come to a new country, taught himself Portuguese to get by, planned next steps and is super confident he’d be fine if ever faced with the monarchy.

Beaming at my Omelette, I make my way back to the table. Mrs Parsnip raises an eyebrow as she sees I’m no longer in a funk. She eyes my plate in surprise as she eats a bowl of fruit. Where did you get THAT, she says. It’s the Omelette station guy! I tell her excitedly. He’s from India and he’s making desi omelettes. He asked if you wanted one.

There is a loud scraping noise as Mrs Parsnip excitedly pushes her chair back, abandons her fruit bowl and rushes off to the egg station. I see them having a chat. Omelette Raja seems shy but in a few seconds she has disarmed him and they are cackling away like two old ladies at a knitting convention. She returns with a massive Omelette of her own and tells me he’s endearing. They omelettes themselves are actually really, really good – fluffy and light and well set and laced with coriander and chillies. Classic and wholesome and richly evocative of a time in our lives that has since passed.

The weather eventually clears -up and we’re able to head out and savour the delights of the Algarve. Lunches and dinner are laden with fresh seafood and some spicy Frango for good measure. There’s almond cake/tart like things and local regional wines. And Portugese snacky snacks.

But for breakfast we religiously pay obeisance to Omelette Raja every morning. As he whips up omelettes exactly as we like them, he regales us with stories of his adventures and plans for world domination with the zest and self-assured confidence of someone in their 20s not yet jaded by the decades.

I hope he ends up with his German (and eventually, global) Kebab empire. We’re so rooting for him.