Author: manuscrypts

  • 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 cafĂ© 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 cafĂ© 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 cafĂ© 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

  • 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 🙂

  • The Space Between Us

    Thrity Umrigar

    Describing ‘The Space Between Us’ as just another multi-layered tale of relationships would be injustice. Though it is essentially the story of Sera Dubash and Bhima, who lie at the two ends of the class spectrum, it deals with a gamut of human emotions – love, loss, betrayal, hatred and a strange bond between the two characters.

    Though separated by class, their lives are similar in many ways, and that perhaps is the reason why they seem to draw strength from each other. Bhima is an illiterate maid, who lives in a slum with her grand daughter Maya, and Sera is a well heeled Parsi lady who lives with her daughter Dinaz and son-in-law Viraf. The marital lives of both Sera and Bhima have been far from happy, and their lives are centred around the happiness of their children/grandchildren. Bhima has been working for over 20 years at the Dubash household and wants to release Maya from the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. Sera wants to see her daughter happy, and is looking forward to the birth of her grandchild.

    The narrative moves across the past and the present, thus beautifully expanding the characters for the reader by showing the relationships they’ve been through. What appealed to me about this book is not so much the story, but the way its been told. The prose is simply amazing, and as with ‘Bombay Time’, the author subtly weaves in the dynamics of the city. A superbly realistic book, in which the characters are true to themselves, this one ranks high on my favourites.

  • Master Classes

    The last few episodes of Masterchef Australia Season 2, especially after it came down to the final four, were quite awesome. For me, it went beyond the cooking or even the amazing camaraderie between the participants and the judges. The final two turned out to be Adam and Callum, separated in age by more than a decade.

    Adam, I thought, (thou shalt not dare to bring up the fact that I know zilch about cooking) was quite a genius. Though he was a bit too arrogant in the mid-episodes to be my favourite, his range and the thinking and creativity he brought into his cooking were nothing short of phenomenal. Meanwhile Callum’s level of cooking sometimes made you forget the age (and experience) difference between the two.

    But something more than that made me identify with Callum. A very smart friend recently gave me a Master Class and pointed out to me a classification of personalities – askers and guessers. I belong to the latter, I do tons of calculations and thinking before I can ask something of someone, and I still wonder if I’m being presumptuous or inconveniencing them. The worse part, I’ve noticed that the shyness is mistaken for arrogance!!

    In one episode, when Callum’s dish earns special praise from an external judge, he mumbles a ‘thank you’. Matt Preston admonishes him and reminds him of what he’s supposed to say when he’s praised. Callum then asks the judge whether he can do a stage, (“Staging is when a cook or chef works briefly, for free, in another chef’s kitchen to learn and be exposed to new techniques and cuisines”), and is promptly rewarded. I wonder how much ‘asking’ has to do with confidence and passion. Callum is fortunate to have discovered a passion early in life. I’m sure that his experiences will make him more confident.

    I read this excerpt from a book, which talked about “young adults in America choosing to slow down their path to adulthood”. Probably a good move. (Generalising) By the time we go through the motions of education and work, the baggage and constraints start accumulating. The passion practically disappears, and the experience possibly does more harm than good. Rediscovering all of it is no easy process.

    Perhaps, if we had an ‘education system’ that could help identify what we wanted+were good at+ could earn money with, we’d have more askers than guessers. Because then, we’d know our passion, and with that knowing would come a direction to seek our experience, with that would come confidence, and then all the world would actually be a stage – to learn and to perform.

    until next time, youthopia indeed

    Related Read: A toast to common genius

  • Elements Heritage

    In terms of heritage, Elements used to be quite liked for its continental menu, while on Nandidurga Road. I was looking at the photos on their site, and wondered how I managed to miss it. 😐 All’s not lost though, as the new Elements Heritage, on Mosque Road, (just after Savoury, diagonally opposite Empire, just before Mosque Road meets MM Road – map) scores heavily on ambiance, and only differs in cuisine focus. Parking shouldn’t be a big problem, more so because there are enough side lanes around.

    Apparently, this was a really old Raj bungalow which has been revamped. As soon as we got there, we were shown a table, but also encouraged to take a little tour to see more seating options. That included a section upstairs with a live counter, but apparently, that was for the buffet diners. So we got back to our ground floor table, which was neat enough. The ambiance is really super, and the spread out table groups, not visible to each other, ensure that you feel the restaurant buzz, but still retain the exclusive dining experience. The lighting is dim, but the only discomfort that caused was in the photography.

    The menu is below, the last one was the buffet menu for the day, priced at Rs.550 + tax. (click to enlarge) While I was struggling to take the photos, the owner, presumably, who was taking another set of guests on the restaurant tour, offered to send me the menu by mail. I was almost through though, so I didn’t take up the offer. (seeing that quenchers page, I should have :\ ) That only adds to my feeling that the guys who run the place want to add a personal touch and make the dining experience really good.

    From that large selection, which included many many things we wanted to try, we skipped the shorbas and went for a “Seekh ‘e’ Elements” and a Bheja Fry. The former  consists of 4 seekh kebabs, each with an idiappam. Quite good, but the winner was clearly the Bheja fry, spicy and cooked superbly.  This was the part where I was caught between getting a good photo and devouring the food. The latter won out, as is obvious.

    For the main course, we ordered a ‘Meen appam’, and a ‘Kozhi Mulagh Ittathe’. Most of the dishes come with neer dosa/rice, so ask before you order naans/ appam/ rice separately. The meen appam actually turned out more like an ada than appam, with fish stuffed in it and cooked in a banana leaf. It comes with a sauce that seemed to have a jeera flavour, which worked well to complement the taste. Though we felt that the ada overpowered the fish filling, its still a dish you could try. The chicken dish came with two kinds of rice (one of which was the Kerala style boiled rice) and 4 neer dosas. We expected this to be really spicy, but it was actually more flavoursome, despite me eating up one of the large chillies.

    We debated a biriyani, but then decided to behave in a more un-glutton manner and  debated whether we should ask for a halwa of the day or a Shahi Tukda. The former wasn’t available (thankfully, on hindsight). The Shahi Tukda was really good – less heavy (ghee) than usual, and is highly recommended. All of the above cost us a little less than Rs.1000. The service is brilliant, offers to help and the place probably has the promptest delivery time I’ve seen  recently.

    Elements gets into our favourites list for many reasons – a menu that’s not very common, an ambiance that’s really awesome, excellent service and overall, a wonderful dining experience.

    Elements Heritage, #55, Mosque Road, Frazer Town, Ph: 41144146/8