Author: manuscrypts

  • Something Fishy

    Actually a lot of things. But before your imagination runs wild, its only the name of a restaurant in Langford Town. Its actually a 2.0 version, since they’d been closed for sometime, for renovation, and the new avatar looks markedly different from the older one – more spread out, some props, and a distinct increase in price, but thankfully, the food remains fabulous. When coming from the Koramangala side, take a left towards Langford Town, keep going until you see Divyasree Chambers, and soon after that, you’ll have Something Fishy on the right.

    The place offers coastal cuisine – Mangalorean, Goan, Kerala. It does have some Tandoor and Chinese stuff, but I’d say, ignore that. We also decided to ignore the soups, and go for an Anjal Masala Fry as a starter. Thats King Fish, with one of the tastiest masala you’ll ever find. One portion gives you a couple of pieces. You could also try the Pomfret version.

    For the main course, we ordered a Chicken Ghee Roast ( Chicken cooked in fine ground masala and home made ghee), butter dosas, sannas and a fish biriyani. The Chicken Ghee Roast is just spectacular, but you should be tolerant to spicy food to enjoy it. Its a very thick gravy (actually a paste) and is of enough quantity to last through all the other items. They also give you some gravy, so you dont really have to order anything extra. The butter dosas are the kal dosa (thick) types, so if you prefer the thin version, go for neer dosas. The sannas were the only disappointment – quite flaky. In fact, we haven’t had good sannas in a while now – the last being at Kubay‘s first avatar. The fish biriyani was also quite good. The end result was that we were stuffed.

    Now, since we’d returned from our Kerala trip only a few days back, we didn’t try any of our Mallu dishes, but you should definitely try them. There are prawns, Chicken stew, squid and so on, though I thought the Malabar Porotta was a bit steeply priced at Rs.25. Meanwhile, our meal cost us just over Rs.600 – the best dinner we’ve had in quite a while. 🙂

    Something Fishy, #1, Cornwell Street, Langford Road, Langford Town. Ph: 41245505, 42114007

    Menu at Zomato.

  • Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories

    Isaac Asimov

    Forget science fiction, if you are the kind who is affected by story telling and the imagination involved therein, this is a must-read. Its amazing that even after half a century has passed, and humanity has advanced quite a bit, Asimov’s work, even in terms of human relationships, raises questions we haven’t even begun exploring. He has a great sense of humour, which raises its head at the most improbable moments, thereby making it all the more fun.
    The collection has quite a few stories about Multivac, the super computer that guides humanity and its actions. ‘The Last Question’ is an amazing piece of work that deserves special mention. In addition to being a fantastic science fiction tale, it also offers a wonderful take on the origin of the universe.
    The other story that’s interesting happens to be Franchise, whose storyline is that by studying patterns of human behaviour over a long timeframe, Multivac is able to use one person as a representative sample and elect the US president basis his choice of candidates. The story is set in 2008. I guess humanity hasn’t progressed as fast as Asimov imagined. More change we need. 🙂
    Now for Volume 2.

  • The Nitpicker presents…

    It gets pretty cold in Bangalore around this time. In anticipation, I started shopping in October for a jacket. But after scouring more than a dozen outlets, I still haven’t found one I liked. I’ve become adept at finding faults, much to D’s chagrin. In homage to that exercise, and D’s patience, I dedicate Knitpicking.

    until next time, cold vibes

  • The India concept

    Ok, so maybe its not a concept to be questioned, but what’s the point in having a blog if i cant discuss what i want. Considering the effect it had on a couple of friends, I am expecting much angst.

    To begin with, let me make it clear that the idea of India still finds much appeal in my emotional side. I like the vastness and uniqueness of it all, and the fact that we have a shared history. But unfortunately, it doesn’t find favor these days in my logical side. I feel that we have created an entity that has become way too  large to handle for anyone. The events in Mumbai and a federal agency having to enter the fray added to this belief. No, the resignation of two ministers at the state level doesn’t quite capture the responsibility that the state/city administration should’ve taken on.

    Even though I keep in mind the fact that I dont need a passport or a visa to go to Goa or Rohtang, everything from the fuss over the TN number plates in Bangalore, to the language barriers, from the fact that my Kerala voter’s id is of no use in Bangalore, to the ‘Madrasi’ caricature in Bollywood, gives me the feeling that we’re just a forced conglomerate of states. And then we elect a couple of houses of MPs, from these states, so that the Communists, who can barely form the government in 2 states, play spoilsport to a nuclear deal. We form a central government which helps the state governments say that just about nothing is their responsibility. Once upon a time, we’d everything from shared memories to Doordarshan to give us a semblance of common identity. Do we have that now? And that’s when i ask, whether the gains from the concept of India are really more than the losses.

    If each state had more responsibility than a Central government, a mandate of taking care of itself – security, finance, infrastructure and so on, wouldn’t we have more accountability to governance, an accountability which can then be better put to use at local levels. My friend said that this has nothing to do with scale, but I think that by just being such a vast entity, we are actually laying ourselves open to divisions. Like the SMS forward I saw ‘Politicians divide us, terrorists unite us’. And meanwhile, Mumbai perhaps has a few more weeks before it gets into the archives sections, with hardly any retaliation or concrete action to be shown for the trauma.

    I agree that a discussion here won’t change anything, but humour me, what do you think?

    until next time, state your view

  • Flame of Tandoor

    That name and the description – ‘a contemporary cuisine restaurant’, in a paper insert that said “Get greeted by an Italian host, experience western ambience, place your order for a continental dish with a chinese attendat (sic) to be cooked by a flame chef” meant that I really had to take a look myself, even though (for some strange reason) I had the same feeling I did when i bought tickets for Himesh’s Karzzz, this, despite it being a part of the Azad Group (the same that owns Tandoor)

    To get there, (when coming from the Indiranagar side), after the Sony World junction, take a right turn on to the road that has William Penn, Barista etc, and then a left towards Jyoti Nivas college. The place is after the Apollo clinic, and before the Qwiky’s outlet.(both roads are one ways)

    I’d begin with saying that whoever decided the name should take a long hard look at the menu card. My professional experience (brand) tells me that higher powers must have insisted on having ‘Tandoor’ in the name for some strange synergy only they can perceive. The menu is a mix of continental, oriental and a few north indian items. The issue is that there is very limited ‘depth’ in each category, with the continental part being slightly better off. For me, the very fact that a restuarant with such a name has Tabasco and HP sauce on the table jarred. Though the seating is quite comfortable, the ambience is also like the menu – lacks any specific theme. They play “9x music”. 😐

    Anyway, considering that there were only a couple of choices in chicken gravies, and we’d rather go to a specialised Oriental cuisine place if we wanted that, we decided to go Continental, and started with a Mushroom Cappuccino soup, which is “white wine and thyme flavoured cream of mushroom”. D asked for chicken in it too, and got it. Must admit that the soup was pretty good. They also gave us some bread with some special butter, which seemed to be mustard based.

    For the main course, we ordered a Flame’s mix grill – “a combination of chicken, lamb, fried egg served with potato roesti and grilled tomato”, and Lasagna alla pollo – “baked layer of pasta with chicken bolognaise, parmesan and cheese sauce”. The mixed grill was strictly okay, i really have had better stuff – in terms of quality and quantity(at Indijoe, for example). The Lasagna was definitely better though the garlic flavor was a bit too much, but the quantity was quite sufficient.There were a few dessert options, including a rice kheer+strawberry ice cream combination, but we really didn’t feel adventurous enough.

    Wallet wise, it set us back by a little less than Rs.700. The service is pretty decent, though  after every course, two people ask you how the food was.That gets irritating after a point. The pricing means that the target crowd is definitely not the JNC kids, who have way too many options around anyway. I really wish they’d concentrate on one kind of cuisine though, this spread really didn’t appeal to me.

    Flame of Tandoor, #63, Near Jyothi Nivas College, Koramangala Industrial Layout. Ph: 41104337

    PS. Okay, I admit, maybe I was just disappointed that the chef didn’t turn out to be one of the Fantastic 4. In my defence, ‘Flame chef’ is very misleading. The Italian host was missing too. Okay, I’ll stop nitpicking!!

    Menu at Zomato