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British Restaurant Launches Its Famous Samosa Into Space. Instead, It Is Discovered In France

The Chai Walla restaurant in Bath, England is well-loved by its customers and many describe its samosas as "the best, south of Birmingham." The restaurant recently added another achievement to such sterling reviews when owner Niraj Gadher realized his quirky dream of sending one of his samosas into space!

By Cookist
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Gadher discloses that it all started out as a joke and that he didn't even think he'd go through with it. However, he recently decided that with the seemingly unending news of the  pandemic, it would make for a good laugh.

He said:

"I said as a joke once that I would send a samosa into space, and then I thought during these bleak times we could all use a reason to laugh. The feedback is that it's bought a lot of laughter from people and that's what we wanted really, to spread joy."

Unfazed by how unusual the goal may be, Gadher had set out to find the equipment necessary, including a helium-filled weather balloon, a GPS tracker, and a GoPro camera.

Gadher and his friends quickly assembled a small package that contained an aloo samosa and a wrap from the restaurant. Then, they headed to an open field, to prepare for their first launch.

The first two attempts to launch the package failed; the first attempt ended when the balloon got away from the team.

Gadher issued an apology for the mistake considering the detrimental effects this could have on the environment. He said:

"I'm really sorry to everyone that we lost those balloons, for environmental reasons. That was obviously not the plan."

The second trial also failed when the team realized that there wasn't enough helium to send the package skyward. These failed attempts sure didn't deter Gadher and finally, the launch was successful on the third trial.

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The food parcel made it high enough that the attached GoPro filmed a passing airplane, and the altitude also made the GPS freak out. Gadher lost contact with it overnight, but then the data confirmed that the samosa had made it over the English Channel before falling back to Earth somewhere in Caix, France.

Gadher and his team started reaching out to French Instagrammers who lived near the landing site, which was more than 300 miles from Bath. They found a positive response from Axel Mathon, who had received one of Gadher's DMs.

Mathon says:

"At first I really thought it was rubbish, that they were trying to rip me off, and then he sent me a video explaining the whole story to me."

Curious, Mathon took a one-hour drive to see if he could really retrieve whatever might be left of the package.

He said:

"Really until I got here, I couldn't believe it. When I looked up, I saw the burst helium balloon in the trees, and I found this well-packed polystyrene box. It was a bit like a treasure hunt, I thought it was crazy!"

Mathon was only able to recover the GPS and the camera — some local animal already beat him to the samosa and the wrap!

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