Road Trip! In Search of South Indian Food in Marin County.

   I love road trips, Alan loves road trips and Patsy particularly loves road trips because since it's been raining non-stop around here for weeks, the dog park has been closed due to mud. So a road trip for her means a fun day with all her friends at Vintage Kennel Club
    This involves running around the play yard, swimming in the doggy pools and all sorts of other high jinks that will remain unmentioned here.
    So after dropping Patsy off at Vintage, Alan and I were off to Marin county with our friend Mr. X to dine at Om South Indian Cuisine in San Rafael. There are not a lot of places around here (besides my house) where one can get South Indian food, and I always love it when I can get it without cooking it myself.I am also never one to turn up my nose at an $8.99 all you can eat buffet. In the words of Charlie Sheen "Winning!"
   What is not shown is the amazing dosa masala that came along with this lunch. Alan didn't have a lens fast enough to get a picture of it before it disappeared down my gullet, but here's my buffet plate. Great food, nice people, fair prices. What is there not to like about this.
   Okay, enough of him. I also wanted to hit the Malabar Indian Store one of the few Indian Groceries in Northern California.
I needed to restock my larder which I did. Here's just a part of my order. I loaded up on dried amchur, black cardamom, my favorite brand of chapatti flour...(which Paula Wolfert turned me on to)
 And a bunch of other goodies.I need a lot of dal now that I've developed a wicked vadai habit. The George family, owner operators of the Malabar Indian Store helped me find everything I needed.
After that it was back in the car and over to Williams-Sonoma to finally collect on the gift certificate that the POMWonderful people gave me as a prize in their POMWonderful dinner contest last November. I got loads of great stuff, ( including two chamba clay pots). Everyone was very helpful.
   Here I am clutching a Chamba Black Clay baking pan while experiencing wok shock, as the finer points of this culinary tool were being explained to me.
  Thanks Williams-Sonoma and POMwonderful!
   I am sitting here now with my feet up writing this, and I know I have to get down to that coconut flour waffle recipe, which I'll write down tomorrow. Promise. Meanwhile, you can follow along on Twitter @kathygori