Monday 5 September 2016

Call me Old School!!


This has been a thought for a while.

This has been a known fact for a longer while.

People like you have known this all this while.

What I meant throughout this while is not our increasing dependency on technology and social media, but our entrapment in the clutches of it.

All this brewed as a result of getting a wedding invite from a friend over Whatsapp.

Dude, it’s my wedding on <insert date here> at <insert venue here>. Please do come

I am sure that a lot many of you would have received something of sorts. Where has the element of interpersonal relationship and personal touch gone?

Call me old school; I still prefer the touch and feel of wedding invites by post. At least the painstaking process of fitting in your address on glossy finished cover has an input from a friend, meaning he/she wants your presence while he/she gets hitched.

Creating an event on Facebook, checking the names of the people you want to invite and mass sending the invite- despite the intent being good, the personal touch involved is not present.

While even the online marketers are using our browser cookies to generate ads based on our preferences, the kith and kin do not take so much of it being a minuscule task of taking the pains to putting in a personal feel. A telephone call would suffice with the same message spelled out; you know that he/she wants you there.

Call me old school; I still prefer reading news from the good ol’ paper sipping a cuppa coffee.

Call me old school; I still prefer the ATL promos that are beamed over all the media space.

Call me old school; this is just my point of view.


(checks iPhone and Samsung Gear S2 for updates and continues reading on Kindle)

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Food Trail- 2- Anjappar Restaurant, Farwaniya, Kuwait

Ever had a meal where water was the best of the delicacies?
That was what was unveiled at the Anjappar Restaurant in Kuwait.
A vegetarian is almost always a downtrodden sect in food cycle, be it in the class 5 science textbook or in any restaurant for that matter. Vegetarian food lacks variety and is often a lackluster course. While the only vegetarian restaurants do justice on the aspect, the others are a letdown.

The story of a letdown begins here:
Dining at a restaurant chain renowned for its Chettinad cuisine, present in almost 10 countries across 3 continents, the expectations were sky high.

A ride of almost 30 kms, 30 minutes into finding the restaurant and a parking, what we had was camaraderie of disappointment and frustration.

Our order: tomato soup, veg kothu porotta, appam, veg kofta and coffee.

Tomato soup was watered down and a dollop of cream was added on top of it to mask its awfulness. The veg kothu porotta, a traditional Tamil fusion dish was absolute mockery to its ancestry, being too salty and lacking the finesse. The appam had an undercooked center, while the crust was crispy and kind of tasty.

The dish that topped the comedy of errors was the veg Kofta. The gravy tasted as if it was made using the second grade Chinese Manchurian masala available in the markets. The veg dumplings in the dish were nothing to complain about, but even if it is a cherry on the top of a pile of garbage, it becomes inedible.

The last straw of the meal –coffee, well, nothing good or bad would come out of writing about it.

The service was top notch on a scale to 0 to negative infinity. The waiters were throwing plates to the table with a grudge on their faces.  

Rewind to a year and a half back: I dined solo at Anjappar in Chennai for lunch. Amazing food it was. The spicy kara kuzhambu complemented the sweltering heat and chilled water. Reasonably priced with pretty decent service, it was a good choice to dine there.  

The verdict- if you are vegetarian, avoid the place. If that isn't a possibility, at least avoid eating, just watch them dine.

The bill: KWD 5.100 ($17) for 2


Happiness: *1/2

Thursday 12 May 2016

Food Trail-1- Udupi Restaurant, Sharq

 

Being a vegetarian in a predominantly non-vegetarian country is kind of an uphill task. The number of vegetarian restaurants are quite a few, hence eating out might turn out to be an experience appalling than appealing.

From a vegetarian whose occasional visits to the shawarma joints are masked by a pretentious veil of notoriety and obscurity, here begins a journey of eating and documenting vegetarian food across Kuwait.

Food, as we know, fuels the body. As for me, it fuels passion more than life.

For a vegetarian, Udupi cuisine is as indispensable as salt in a dish. The most prominent vegetarian food chain in Kuwait, Udupi restaurant serves as the best option for dosas and thalis while the unexplored other varieties seems forgotten in dingy corners of the menu card. What is a more apt way to start an attempt to be a food blogger than to try to review the best vegetarian cuisine of the subcontinent. 

Nestled in a cozy spot amidst the hustle bustle of the city, the Sharq branch of the chain was almost full as we came in for a quick dinner. While the menu listed North Indian cuisine, we decided against it and placed the safest bet- dosas.

Our order was curd vada, masala dosa and onion rava dosa and coffee to wash it down.

The extremely soggy vada dipped in sour curd was a pretty bad start to appease our ravenous hunger. The masala dosa were a fitting reply to the bad setback done by vadas. Eating through crisp outer layers to reach the "highlight"- aloo masala, we dug in with great expectations.

As the saying goes, with great expectation comes great disappointment, this was a classic example. Oddly shaped potatoes mashed with bland masala- something that did not do justice to the looks as well as the palate.

The onion rava dosa was crisp and had copious amounts on onion which were charred to perfection. While the batter had a hint of age, it was far from being a bad choice.

The sambar served was a distant cousin of a dish whose next door neighbor knew the real Udupi sambar. The chutneys were the best of the lot. Something that tasted like gongura made up one chutney and that was mmmmmm..... The other one was a coconut based chutney which had nothing to complain about.

The filter coffee served here was basically like a cheap Chinese rip off of the original- the infamously famous traditional filter coffee. Overly sweet but drinkable, period.

The verdict: Batter matters.
The cost: KWD 2.500 for 2 hungry and crazily food fanatic adults


Happiness: **1/2

Thursday 18 February 2016

Pinoy Gourmand!


The monotonous procedure of eating the same kind of food daily is often drudgery. At times, to rejuvenate the taste buds, a change becomes the need of the hour. Changes are inevitable, especially for the chawal eating mankind in the great subcontinent.

While the palette rejoices the fervent cravings with a dash of international cuisines like Italian, Arabic or Chinese, little explorations were done on the other gourmets of the world.

And little did I know that my need for change would land me up in a Filipino joint outside the hustle and bustle in the great Arabian country, Kuwait.

The eatery looked like it was lifted out of a pre-industrial revolution setup, with dim white light creating halos over the food behind the counter. While my knowledge of non-Indian cuisines is pretty amazing, the things behind the counter looked like I was gazing into a crystal ball of an alien fortune teller.  

While the lady behind the counter told the names of the dishes, all I could figure out was some myriad mis-orchestrated nasal music notes (like Himesh Reshammiya’s songs, but better)

The laid out spread had a few fish dishes, one chicken and a vegetarian item. I guess I could see a slight flapping of fins and shudder in the gills as the counter staff picked up a whole fish for the person in front of me. I am sure that I saw the fish’s eye roll in agony and plead for mercy as the person walked to his table, lips smacking. 

Being a righteous vegetarian who indulges in chicken once in a blue moon, I thought it was the best choice and second safest bet to choose the vegetarian dish.  The primordial safest bet was to walk out, as my imposing figure entering the place, had woken up the people enjoying their afternoon ambrosia. The time had passed for that.

I seated myself in the rickety chairs. The table had variety of sauces and pickled jalapenos for helping yourself. People around me were looking at me with awe, like I had wandered into a fine dining restaurant and seated in a table-for-1 on Valentine’s Day.   

The lady served my food- rice and some curry. The rice was sticky but was not that bad. The curry was some green vegetable cooked in a not so spicy broth, but was sharp in taste due to the citric acid. This was topped with fried tofu. Accompanied with the tangy jalapeno pickle, which had occasional chilly and onion to go, make it a revelation of citric acid and more citric acid.
The food was a no nonsense affair, simple and elegant, but apart from who likes experimenting new thing, I highly doubt whether the DalChawals and Thayirsadams of the country would live up to like the cuisine of this side of the world.

After getting back to office, I googled up the mental image of the dish and the closest resemblance for the same was something called ‘Ampalaya Guisado’ which was sautéed bitter gourd. And good heavens, it was nothing close to bitter.

While my monotony of chawal did not bring out any particular benefit, I could get to experience a whole new cuisine and get to know a civilization. (ahem, ahem, a simple yet powerful punch-lie to end an article)



Monday 15 February 2016

Why did I start watching Game of Thrones?


Why did I start watching Game of Thrones?

Sheer boredom could sum it up as an answer. 

The next question could have been why did I start binge watching GoT? Could I have stopped watching it at any point in time?

I have stopped watching many a TV show because the whole idea of entertainment becomes botched up. I stopped watching Two and a Half Men shortly after Charlie Sheen was chucked off. With his exit, I guess a huge chunk of viewership also got chucked off. 

With regards to watching GoT, well, you could probably guess why.

The gripping story line and the effortless acting led by the ensemble cast made the series worth every moment of sleep lost. Every moment of the show, I could feel my heart beating against my Anand's apple (damn you, Joey Tribbiani)

Since I didn't bother to read the books, I guess each frame brought out a novel viewing experience for me. 

From the first minute in the first episode of the first season, I was blown away by the sheer amount of talent in the show, intertwined by the amount of macabre and nudity in the show. 

With almost each episode ending in a cliffhanger, I bet each one of the many million viewers would definitely be counting days till the 24th of April 2016. 

With the numerous talents behind the scenes, I would personally vouch for Lena Headley and Peter Dinklage as the better of the lot. 

Queen Cersei, a manifestation of cruelty and malignance within the whole plot leaves no stone unturned when it comes to the protection of her children and their father (ahem. ahem!) Every single frame of Cersei had a myriad set of emotions ranging from joy to authority, from hatred to pity, from lust to nonchalance, she was absolutely a delight to watch. 

Tyron Lannister, a dwarf always subjected to rebuke from his father and sister, was an amazingly effortless performance by Peter Dinklage. The facial facade of this marvelous casting is guaranteed to leave you in awe. 

In addition to them, the characters Jon Snow, King Joffrey, Arya Stark, Ned Stark, Catherine Tully and the ensemble makes it more likable and hateworthy, depending upon the inclination of the character. 

While the audience prayed for the death of some characters, their ends came in as a bit of a surprise with the ends being slightly off-putting. King Joffrey, for example, was a loathsome character, who had his end, in a not-so-the-way-we-thought-of manner. The murder of Robb Stark was at a juncture that was totally uncalled for. The sacrifice of Stannis Baratheon's daughter cemented his position in the minds of the viewers as a uncouth insane human. 

The season 5 finale leaves the major stars in tantrums, Jon stabbed, Arya blinded, Theon and Sansa plummeting to the grounds and everyone else under a veil of verbose uncertainty. The season 6 teaser is shown with quite a lot of kick-on-the shins for the viewers. 

The fight for Iron Throne and mistimed murders of the characters makes Game of Thrones a TV show never to be missed. Not to mention the locale, casting and costumes (or the lack of it), the factors contribute to making its season 6 premiere highly desirable and most sought after. 

Valar Morghulis
Valar Dohaeris


Game of Thrones Season 6 Teaser

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