Author: manuscrypts

  • Dalma

    The Oriya cook is quite good, but the side-effect is that we kept shifting our ‘odyssey’ to Dalma, despite it being only a short walk away from home. Dalma specialises in Eastern India cuisine, and is located on the Intermediate Ring Road, at the junction with 8th Main. Zomato has the map as well as the menu. They have some parking in front of the restaurant, but that’s minimal. You should probably park on one of the side lanes nearby, especially if you have a 4 wheeler.

    Though it has a bright setting, comfortable seating and other such necessary ingredients necessary to make it a functional restaurant, there’s something about the place that  makes it a ‘home away from home’. I confess to not having any knowledge of Oriya homes, despite this boy and this girl being among my best buddies, but for those who’re familiar with the erstwhile “Ravi’s Kitchen”, perhaps you’ll get an idea. The smiling and helpful staff only add to this.

    We started with a Chicken Pakoda, which didn’t turn out great. It got the pakoda part right, but the bones spoiled the dish. For the main course, we ordered a Chicken Kasha with Luchis. The luchis were thicker and I felt it was better than the Bengali versions I’ve had. It also went very well with the thick chicken gravy. We also ordered a ‘Saguati Khechudi – Chicken’ and a fish fry. The former is a rice dish, reminiscent of the Biriyani, but only in basic form and the latter turned out to be Rohu, cooked very well. And then the real main course – Pahala Rasgulla, and Chhenapoda. I liked the former much more than the familiar sponge rasgullas and the latter, with its burnt crust and made from cottage cheese was also awesome!

    All of the above cost us just over Rs.450. A visit is highly recommended, for a simple yet different cuisine experience.

    Dalma, #37, 100ft Ring Road, Koramangala Ph: 41660921

  • Running for eternity

    I must confess that I didn’t like Mitch Albom’s “Tuesdays with Morrie” as much as his other book “The Five People you meet in heaven“, but writing anything negative about a non-fiction book such as this is not in good taste, so I refrained from doing a review. I also think that it is not so much a bad book and this takeout is more to do with my evolution than the writing or the concept itself.

    The good thing though is that it does have quite a few nuggets that you can chew on for quite some time. 🙂 This is my attempt to thread together a few. To be precise, three of my favourites.

    At least a couple of times in the second half, Morrie talks about how people run after the next house, vacation, car, job etc because they think that this will grant them the elusive ‘meaning, and how our culture has ‘forced’ people to feel threatened when they stand to lose their materialistic gains. This is what makes money God, and them mean. This is, of course, completely debatable, but I brought this up only for context. It led me to think that how, in infancy and in old age (from several instances I have seen, read about) and perhaps sickness, we are more concerned with needs, and at all times in between, it moves towards wants.

    On a tangent, I remembered the ‘proof of good times’ thought that I’d shared earlier, more than a year back, in ‘Progress Report‘, and how we capture images and notes, sometimes for ourselves, and sometimes for others. Ourselves, for memories, and perhaps posterity, and others, because, I thought ubiquitous social connectivity is perhaps making us inadvertently live a life we want to portray to others. I discovered a nice usage in the book that connected to this thought of eternity attempts “And tapes, like photographs and videos are a desperate attempt to steal something from death’s suitcase“.

    And while on posterity and eternity, the last one, a quote from Henry Adams “A teacher affects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops”. I think, in that sense, every being is a teacher, and thus lives on.

    until next time, wednesdays with manuscrypts, okay? 😉

  • Oyster Bay

    In continuing with Koramangala’s tradition of multiple options for each cuisine type, we now have a seafood restaurant called Oyster Bay on the Jyoti Nivas college road. (map) This is right next to Bhima Jewellers, another good example of how we’re slowly converting it to Keramangala, the official Bangalore #mallu outpost. Oyster Bay also has a Kerala owner, I was told. 😀 The BBMP has a free parking lot nearby, so parking shouldn’t be a problem at all.

    Now I’m one of those strange Malayalis who have an allergy for most kinds of seafood. Stop looking at me like that! Piscean that I am, I’m fishy too, okay?! So I was a bit afraid that I wouldn’t have too many options here. But I checked out the menu beforehand on Zomato and found that I did have more than a few options after all.

    I quite liked the ambiance – stylish casual dining. Bright colors, functional but elegant furniture, and excellent (dish) presentation. You also have a chance to point and prey – a  seafood live counter of sorts, though only D checked it out.  (they also serve alcohol and have a sort-of lounge space)

    Though we contemplated the veg soup option, we finally settled on two starters – “Mussels and Sausage Satay” and “Finger 3”. (cubed) As you can see, the former also has mushrooms for company. The ‘paste’ in the centre, I thought, had a peanut flavour, D wasn’t sure, but it was quite good. With each starter, you also get a complimentary veg starter portion. In this case, we asked for  a ‘Hara Bara Kebab’, which was reasonably ok. Overall, worth a try if you like mussels. The other starter has 3 kinds of breaded ‘fingers’ – fish, chicken and cuttlefish. The cuttlefish was excellent, the fish came a close second and the chicken was only average. The complimentary potato wedges were decent too. Most importantly, I added cuttlefish to my seafood gastronomic repertoire. 😀

    For the main course, D ordered a Shark Ambotik and I asked for a Country Duck Roast. For all main course dishes, you can choose from Steamed Rice, different Pulaos, Parathas etc. D asked for a Jeera Pulao and I asked for Kerala Parathas. The shark dish is a Konkan one, and is sweet and spicy, though the former dominated more than I’d have liked it to. It went well with Jeera Pulao and even the plain rice which we ordered later. Shark was, I discovered, just like any other fish. 😀 The Duck Roast, despite the bones, was spot on in terms of flavour. I told D that I could actually imagine the Syrian Christian Kottayam home where it was made. 🙂

    We skipped desserts, despite a Palada option. All of the above, including a service charge and tax cost us just over Rs.950. The service was extremely good – helpful and prompt, despite the place being almost full by the time we were on our main course. If you’re into sea food, this place is a must visit. Even if you’re not, you’ll survive and judging by my experience, thrive 😀

    Oyster Bay, 77/A, Cygnus Chambers, Jyothi Nivas College Road, Koramangala Ph: 42090000

  • Farm Vile?

    While two movies, despite not being remotely connected in terms of geography or genre, are perhaps not a trend, it did remind me of a conversation from more than a year back – something I blogged about too. An excellent conversation with S, that started with the dystopian scenario of 1984 and human farms and moved on to time travel, all in the context of advancement of society and the species.

    The movies in question are Gamer and Peepli Live, and the one thing that links them – the value of the human life. While the former is set in a word of the future, in which a new technology allows replacement of brain cells to allow full control of a body by a third party and finds application in gaming (one game in which gamers control a real person in a proxy community, a far more ‘real’ version of Second Life, and its more violent avatar, a multiplayer third person shooter game in which death row inmates fight for freedom), the latter is seemingly less complex – a farmer is ‘encouraged’ to commit suicide for the betterment of his family – more specifically, for the money they’ll get as compensation.

    And the question they make me ask – at what point in the future does mankind stop treating human life as sacrosanct? One could argue that it never has been, with the amount of killing that happens around regularly, but what I mean here is as a species. So, when someone says ‘human farms’, there won’t be gasps or expressions of horror/disgust. With population figures soaring, virtual lives competing with real ones, rise of machines, increasing gaps between the haves and have-nots, do you think it will happen? Just in case you think I’ve completely lost it, we’ve already started experiments with living beings – microorganisms in games.

    until next time, knotty question.

  • Zingron

    Zingron serves Naga (and some Manipuri) cuisine and is almost opposite Corner House in Koramangala.(map) The trend of climbing required to reach restaurants serving North East cuisine continues. Remember NE Diner? In Zingron’s case though, there is a midway stop in the form of Coorg.

    Unlike NE Diner, which is purely functional, Zingron is tastefully done in what seemed (in artificial lighting) a cherry red dominated ambiance. The wicker chairs-and-low table options, and the road facing views I am a sucker for, all added to the peace that comes after a good climb. 🙂

    But hungry hogs we were, and thus, dived straight into the menu. You can too, virtually, below (dim lighting didn’t help, and I am bullheaded about using flash)

    As you might notice, choice is abundant, and thus it required complicated rounds of delicate discussions before we decided on the exact food path.

    Since we weren’t foodsure, our first foodhold (last one, promise :D) was in familiar territory – chicken momos. We also ordered a ‘Pork sausage in Tangkhul style’ and a Chicken and dry rice powder soup. The pork came first, and though quite unique and different from the regular fare, was a bit bland. Maybe we should’ve asked for a Bhoot Jholokia chutney. Next time, I’ll try the pork ribs. Meanwhile, the food is served in those nice Manipuri earthenware plates. (we’d seen earlier in a shop in BDA complex, Koramangala, and were told that it actually contributes to the taste) The soup turned up next, and was quite decent, reminded us of sweet corn though it did. The momos turned out to be great, but it was actually the chutney that accompanied it that made the dish fantastic.

    We’d also ordered a Gooseberry juice and a Banana juice. The former was just okay, I liked the one I had at Ants Cafe better, but the fermented banana juice was simply awesome. It would also play a major role later in the dinner.

    For the main course, I ordered a Luira pork and D ordered a Fish fillet with peppered sauce. I was tempted to order a Beef dish too, but decided to figure that out later. We were told that plain rice would work best with what we’d ordered.

    The food takes a while to arrive, but the service more than makes up for it by being very helpful. That pork dish, cooked with red chilly powder in Raphei style, has to be one of the spiciest things ever, and had D crying in seconds. So potent was it that, the fish, which had its own dose of pepper power paled in comparison. Thankfully. The rice managed to temper things a bit, but it was the banana juice that actually saved the tongue from total annihilation. Both dishes are highly recommended, but don’t attempt the pork if you have a problem with chillies or pork fat. The only downside was that we just didn’t have space enough for the beef. But the good part is that D has taken her baby steps towards accepting North Eastern cuisine (at least at Zingron) as a viable repeat-visit place. 😀

    On the cost front, all of this cost us just less than Rs.950, and was completely worth it. Drop in once, and I’m sure you’ll go gaga over Naga too. 🙂

    Zingron, Solitaire Cascade, #62, 2nd Floor, 1st A Main, 7th Block, Koramangala Ph: 40997506