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Month: February 2011
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Urban Solace
This review was first published in Bangalore Mirror, and the busy urban life routine ensured that I was delayed in posting it here. 🙂
If you don’t know the area well enough, you might end up circling Ulsoor lake a few times before you find solace. It’s between Foto Flash and Tamil Sangam. (map) Parking for 2 wheelers is easy, and the extra wheels can find space in one of the many small roads nearby.
Despite the space constraints, the ambiance had a vibrant café feel to it. The bookshelf (despite the business books that looked out of place), the music, the posters, and the art all played a part in lending uniqueness to the place’s character. The idea, apparently, is to create a balance between the ambiance of a café and the dining experience of a regular restaurant. It has quite a ‘house converted to cafe’ feel too, since you can wander into at least a couple more rooms, with a few tables each. Poetry reading sessions are on every Tuesday night.Meanwhile, the menu, on paper, looks good enough to guarantee a good meal. Short eats include a selection of sandwiches and burgers. There are quite a few options in starters and soups, and just enough salads, main course dishes and desserts to take it beyond the standard café fare. They also serve an English breakfast on weekends. You can take a look at the menu below – somehow seemed to have missed the main course page!!
In addition to the chicken soups for the soul – Tom Yum and Cream of Chicken, that were actually spicy enough to affect the palate too, the Spanish soup, based on spinach puree, is also worth trying. Both the starters we tried were disappointing. The Stuffed Mushroom filling turned out to be a bad mushroom–potato combination and the Chicken Gujons were just bland.The Veg A’la King, with mushrooms cooked in white sauce, and the Mexican Chicken with a thick brown tomato based sauce, were the best among the main course dishes. The biggest disaster was that many of the items on the menu were not available. That included the entire selection of mocktails, all the special coffees, and almost the entire dessert section. The one dessert that was available – Orange Choc cake didn’t find favour either.
On the cost front, for Rs.750, you could share a soup, a non veg starter, two main course dishes and a dessert. This seems just about fair enough considering the quality of the food.
Though the service staff was polite and prompt in terms of delivering the food to the table, placing the order itself was quite a tedious process. Add to this, inconsistent, and sometimes unclean cutlery, and a credit card machine that wasn’t working, and you would be tempted to call it a disservice.
You could consider dropping in if you’re around Ulsoor and need a quick bite, but the place really needs to do some soul searching. Urban Solace calls itself a ‘cafe for the soul’, and indeed, the poetry reading sessions and something about the ambiance does show potential in this regard, but sadly, amidst the soul proprietorship attempts, the food seems to have been forgotten. Many of the items in the menu were not available, and though we did manage to have a decent meal, we weren’t really sold on it.
Urban Solace, 32, Annaswamy Mudaliar Road, (between Foto Flash and Tamil Sangam) Bangalore – 42. Tel: 25553656
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Next.org
A few days back, I happened to receive some understanding on the difference between an ‘organisation’ and an ‘institution’. As is my wont, I immediately came back from the event and googled it. All the Q & A forums, however, just sent me to Wikipedia, and to be fair, it did confirm what I had understood. So, the definitions
An institution is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior.
An organization is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, controls its own performance, and has a boundary separating it from its environment. ..There are a variety of legal types of organizations, including: corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and universities.
I think somewhere between the two lies the organisation of the future – where the collective intent of the workforce is more than the sum of the parts. I liked the ‘social purpose’ part of the institution which to me, made it superior to the organisation that has a boundary that separates it from the environment. I felt that this boundary had become an increasingly impervious wall, something that affected intent, culture and even ideas. But I’m not so sure of the ‘permanence’ of the institution. Is it just the idea that’s permanent or the manifestations too?
Let’s quickly bring back that ‘where is this going’ thought into a brand perspective. When i wrote about appification and multiple platforms a fortnight back, I wondered what was the structure that could hold the identity of a brand together. Logos, mission statements, and even the experience – all of which have been used to define ‘brand’ seemed unworthy. Even my favourite – ‘promise to the consumer’ seemed barely there.
The bad news – I don’t have an answer yet. The good news – out there, (at least) a couple of razor sharp brains, armed with much more experience and knowledge, are piecing together the principles that would guide the functioning of the enterprise. The organisation is after all, a means to an end, and the brand is one of those means. So from that, I’m sure, clarity will emerge for brands too. 🙂
until next time, to boldly go where no enterprise has gone before 😉
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Taking the fall
‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is probably a book I might have related to a whole lot better if I’d read it a few years back. Ok, probably a decade 🙂 Be that as it may, it still has areas which still appealed to me.. a lot. One of them is this segment of the conversation between Holden, the protagonist and narrator and his (earlier) English teacher Mr.Antolini.
This fall I think you’re riding for, its a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement is designed for men who, at some or other time in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they really even got it started.
and later in the conversation
…if you want to, and if you look for it and wait for it – to the kind of information that will be very very dear to your heart. Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.
Sometimes, I can identify with the first, and thanks to the internet and the life streams that I come across, sometimes, luckily, the second too. 🙂
until next time, there’s no catch 🙂
