After stuffing ourselves to the point of exhaustion with the wonderful array of rotis and curries, farsan and daals at Bobby's famed vegetarian restaurant on Leicester's Belgrave Road, a nice cup of spiced chai seemed to be the ideal thing to ease our overworked digestive system.
Wrong.
The steaming mugs came with a complimentary selection of from the dazzling array of sweets on show at the takeaway counter _ syrupy globes in garish orange, saffron and cardamom mounds, lozenges of fudge tinted almond, chocolate and shocking pink edged with edible silver foil.
It was irresistible and necessitated a long post-dinner walk in the rain past the saris and jewellery and Bollywood DVDs in the bright shop fronts at the heart of one of England's most vibrant south Asian communities.
Like many of the restaurants around here, Bobby's serves food with its roots in India's western state of Gujarat, food dubbed the haute cusine of vegetarianism by no less an authority than the actress and food writer Madhur Jaffery.
Bobby's eschews not only meat, but also onions and garlic, although there is some confusion over whether this is because of adherence to strict Jainist principles, or simply because the cook's husband (like Prince Charles) does not like them.
There's nothing fancy about the décor. It's a brightly lit, colourful, cheery and reputedly named after a much-loved early-seventies movie of Bombay romance. The prices are pretty cheerful too. An all-you-can eat buffet for little more than a fiver, complete meal thalis for a quid or two more.
For the uninitiated, a thali meal involves a metal tray containing a collection of dishes each with a different dish.
We were three, and ordered two special thalis _ which included a selection of starters, a mixture of main courses, breads and a glass of cool lassi yoghurt drink _ and one Gujarati thali which had just a main course tray.
The starters were made up of farsan, typical Gujariti snacks. They included samosas with paper-thin pasty encasing a filling containing of potato, peas, cashews, ginger, fennel, coriander; bhaji fritters made with chickpea flour filled with potatoes, cassava and green chilli; kachori (delicate, pastry covered lentil balls); dhokla (fluffy, yellow sponge sprinkled with mustard and sesame seeds) with a couple of delicately spiced dipping sauces.
The thalis themselves contained a cornucopia of delights: buttery lentil daal (midway between a soup and a stew), shredded cabbage salad stained a turmeric gold, a selection of chapati and puri breads, crisp poppadoms. There's khichdi (a yellow rice and bean mash) with a bowl of and lemony sour kadhi sauce to pour over it. There was a curry of potato and chick peas, one with a richly spiced aubergine mix, yet another of fresh green peas and cubes of paneer cheese. One bowl had cooling mint-scented yoghurt, another a sweet, thick cream cheese.
It was immense. By the time we'd wiped out bowls clean with the chapatis and gorged on those free sweetmeats we could only stagger out into the street, to full to contemplate a purchase of takeaway cakes.Leicester's Asian community was on course to make the city England's first with a non-white majority, until the recent influx of new immigrants from eastern Europe upset the demographic predictions.
But the city's gastronomic traditions are not limited to its eastern imports. The covered market in the city centre claims to be Europe's largest. Its display of fresh local fruit and veg (plus some exotic imports) in the market square is a foretaste of the delights on offer on by the fishmongers and butchers inside.
There are great blocks of Red Leicester cheese and wedges of blue veined Stilton (whose production is limited to Leicestershire and the neighbouring counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire).
Leicestershire's other traditional gastronomic glory is the pork pie. Fine examples of this crusty morsel can be found in the market or the famed Henry Walker's butchers shop in nearby Cheapside.
Leicester city centre is a surprising pleasant place, with several pedestrian shopping streets lined with stately Victorian buildings, reflecting the city's past prosperity as a hub of the textile, engineering and footwear trade.
The Town Hall square is filled with greenery and a bubbling fountain supported by four winged lions. The St. Martin's Square and Leicester Lanes neighbourhood is filled with idiosyncratic little shops and cafes. There's a medieval, half-timbered Guildhall, where both Shakespeare and Cromwell are reputed to have stayed. Nearby, the gothic cathedral contains the tomb, but not the body, of Richard III who lost his crown and his life at the battle of Bosworth Fields where the Wars of the Roses came to an end in 1485.
At weekends, the jumble of pubs and clubs around Belvoir and Hotel Street are jammed with thousands of partygoers scantily clad in tee-shirts and miniskirts despite the chill October drizzle. The Grand Hotel _ now part of the Ramada-Javis chain _ is an opulent 19th-century pile in the midst of all that. It's a bargain at 65 pound a night including the full English breakfast, even if the rooms are in need of freshening up.
For a quieter time head out to the plush suburb of Oadby past the millionaires' row of mansions built by the former hosiery magnates.
The Cow and Plough is a country pub on the edge of the city. Opened only in 1989, in some old farm stables, it seems much older thanks to the collection of Edwardian pub memorabilia which the landlords have build up over the years.
Sadly the farm park which originally surrounded the pub fell victim to England's 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. The pub has a great laid-back Sunday lunch atmosphere. It has its own brewery, the Steamin' Billy Brewing Co., named after the pub's Jack Russell terrier, making over a dozen award winning ales. The foods not bad either, ranging from giant chunky sandwiches like hot pork and cheddar served with salad and fat fries, to full meals like cod with fennel butter, or roasted pork with Steamin' Billy cider.
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