Kishore Singh: Hors d' raw-oeuvres

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Like most Indians I hadn't given much thought to raw food till last week. The day hadn't begun too well with my wife scolding the cook because the fried eggs she'd served us at breakfast had runny whites.

"We don't eat anything raw in this house," she'd reprimanded her, though personally I thought the eggs quite good, but of course that counts for nothing without my wife's approval.

Which is why I was glad she wasn't there for lunch at The Oberoi's recently launched Threesixty restaurant, where the most prominent part of the meal was the sushi and sashimi.

Purists might argue about the degree of cooking in Japanese cuisine, but the proof sat on a platter before us by way of odd bits of fish and vegetables, clearly uncooked.

Checking to make sure my wife hadn't mysteriously materialised out of thin air, I found myself unable to resist the fish and sticky rice, so beautifully wrapped, the tuna and sea bass and prawns the chef and his team had served up from their literally live counter at the restaurant. A dip in soya, a hint of wasabi "� and heaven.

For the record, there was yakitori and pizza and biryani too, but if you like your eggs runny, you're bound to like your fish and seafood uncooked "� or at least undercooked "� and I was making the most of it. After all, who knew where the next raw meal was coming from?

I needn't have worried. By the strangest of coincidences, that very evening the Taj hosted a small dinner for some visiting royals from Austria, and the menu was as elaborate as the Empire had been long.

But before we were asked to arrange ourselves around the formal dinner tables, cocktails had been served to a standing body of guests where, amidst the many choices of hors d'oeuvres, were oysters on ice.

Now oysters, as anyone will tell you, are never served cooked. Okay, there might be a dip in a hot tub of water before they're set on ice and circulated for consumption, but that's mere formality. And here they were, at this very tony party, and no way you could shuck them politely without the juice dribbling down your chin.

The Taj, of course, knows a thing or two about serving impolite food in polite company. So there was one bearer to wave the oysters under your nose, another to help with the dressings "� a drop of Tabasco, sprinkle of salt, and squeeze of lemon "� before helping you with fork and spoon to scoop up the no doubt paralysed oyster straight to the mouth. I might have missed out on the juices in the bargain, but got the oysters down pat, the third raw meal of the day and none the worse for it.

My wife wasn't impressed. "Brush your teeth," she said when I got home, "and be generous with the mouthwash, I can't stand the smell of raw seafood." I refrained from reminding her that the pickled onions she liked so much "� raw, for the record "� didn't do much for her either, but was in too good a mood to argue.

The next evening, the cook took off to attend a wedding, the children were invited to a birthday party, and my wife decided to accompany them and keep the hostess company.

"What about my dinner?" I asked her before she left, "there's nothing in the fridge. I checked." "Oh, but there is," said my wife maliciously; "there's chicken in the freezer that you may like to thaw for your meal."

"But it isn't cooked," I protested, "how am I to eat it?" "Didn't you say yesterday," my wife reminded me, "that you enjoyed your food raw? Well, now you can have yourself a party."