Rohit Nair’s Blog

It’s been a long time since i posted here, and a longer time since i posted a restaurant review. I’ve been caught up with work lately, and hence the lack of time. I have been to quite a few restaurants in the past few weeks though and i thought I’ll just summarize my views here. Ratings in brackets next to the restaurant name

Giancarlo’s Place (3.5/5)
Went here with my team as it’s just across our office. The place looks very upscale and has nice ambience. As for the food, it was good at best.The garlic bread they served us was not too good, the crust was just too hard. I had lasagna for my main course and it was decent and very filling. The selection of desserts is quite limited and falls well short compared to the choice at Sunny’s next door. Service was ordinary, and i remember we had to wait at least 15 minutes for the bill.

Toscanos (4/5)
One of the new joints that have opened up in the UB City food court. They bread they serve at the start is awesome. Our starter(smoked salmon) was quite disappointing, the portion especially small. The main course(i had some Toscano’s special chicken) though was heavenly. Didn’t have the appetite that day to try out their desserts but i’ve heard they are pretty good as well. The food is served aesthetically and you might find it hard to dig your fork in!

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I just had to watch this movie, considering it had won 3 Oscars, but more because it was made by the Coen brothers. I loved Fargo and and liked the weird comedy,The Big Lebowski (although I don’t think it’s that great a movie). Well, this one’s a much more serious movie although it still has doses of the trademark Coen brothers’ twisted and dark humor. And it certainly isn’t one for the masses, its what many people here call an “award” movie. First of all its slow and has very few dialogues, and the ending is definitely not something a lot of people will like. Its a movie that’s open to interpretation and not one where the directors force a message on the viewers. The movie is set in Texas, close to the Mexican border and the accent can get a bit tough to follow. I had to rewind and listen to some of the dialogues again quite a few times. Among the actors,Javier Bardem probably deserves a mention for the character he plays, he’s perfect as the cold, ruthless killer,easily one of the more memorable villains of recent times. In the end,its a dark movie, there’s no happy ending, no ray of light. But if you are a fan of the Coen brothers, there’s nothing that should stop you from watching this. Here’s one of the funnier lines of the movie that’s often shown in the trailers as well.This is what one of the main characters says to his wife before leaving for the crime scene.

Llewelyn Moss: If I don’t come back, tell mother I love her.
Carla Jean Moss: Your mother’s dead, Llewelyn.
Llewelyn Moss: Well then I’ll tell her myself.

I think i’ll be watching the movie again,with subtitles ON.

Man,you just gotta love online ticket booking! Especially when the site gives you 10 free movie tickets apart from the obvious benefits. Cleartrip.com has this offer of giving 10 movie tickets redeemable at bookmyshow.com when you book tickets on Air Deccan for two. Sweet! Well,they last only for a month and you can redeem only two on a given day,so I decided to redeem them the next day itself and booked tickets for Mithya. bookmyshow.com is pretty neat, you can even chose your seats and I went for the ones with the best view,top row center.

Now to the movie, which is getting some nice reviews from the critics and rightly so. Its obviously not the typical Bollywood fare, but a quality film with a decent story, great acting and of course Rajat Kapoor as the director. Ranvir Shorey has really grabbed this rare opportunity as a lead in a movie with both hands and done a great job. He plays the role of a struggling actor who happens to be the look-alike of a gangster. The support cast of Naseeruddin Shah,Vinay Pathak and co ain’t too bad either. The movie starts off with a lot of humour but slowly the twists and turns start coming and the story takes over. The film probably wouldn’t do well at the box office and probably wouldn’t appeal to the masses either as was evident from the theater, the gold class was full while the silver class was more than half empty. I’d definitely recommend it though, its a good quality Hindi flick thats a welcome change.

Got my 2nd generation 80GB Zune last weekend, thanks a ton to Sony for getting it from the US. A few people have been asking me, why the Zune? Why not the iPod? Which company makes Zunes?

Most people here haven’t heard about the Zune mainly because its sold only in the US and since recently in Canada, unlike the iPod which is more of a global product. And the 2nd generation was released in October of 2007, so its quite a new product. Unlike the first generation, which became the butt of all mp3 player jokes, this one has been received well by most critics, some even stating it to be better than the iPod.

The main features I was looking for were
- Minimum 80GB
- Would be used to play videos as well
- Radio would be a plus,though not a necessity
- Should handle a decent number of file types
- Value for money

Had to do some research to narrow down on my selection. Wikipedia has a comparison chart that can be a great starting point. In the end, some of the options I had were the iPod( Touch and Classic), Zune, Archos 605 and a couple of others like the Cowon A3. The iPod touch has only 16GB and is way expensive, although it is a much more capable device. Between the Zune and the iPod, the Zune costs almost the same, has an FM tuner and has a 3.2″ screen compared to a 2.5″ for the iPod. The Archos 605 seems to be the favourite for many reviewers, but it costs 100$ more, is quite bulky and you need to pay extra for each plugin, even the web browser. But again, its almost in a different class of device, more closer to the iPod Touch. Plus I had read a lot of negative feedback about the Archos player especially regarding their customer care. Surely, an MS or Apple product would be more reliable and will have better support than say an Archos or a Cowon device. In the end, the cost plus the big screen made me select the Zune.

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This post is long overdue.Anyways,here goes.

I had won a Taj gift voucher thanks to a Deutsche Bank slogan contest. And when the time came to decide a place for Amma’s birthday treat, it was an obvious choice. Selecting a restaurant from the three Taj Hotels in the city was not that obvious though, and we finally decided to try out Mynt at the Taj West End. The place servers Italian, Mediterranean, Lebanese and Indian cuisines. A good thing was that they had this brunch buffet on Sundays so we didn’t exactly have to go through the entire menu and order the cheapest/cheaper items. We had booked a table in advance, and I think that was a good idea considering the place was close to full. Although its called the Sunday Brunch, its open till the afternoon and you can easily go there for your lunch (as we did). Frankly, doing a review on the food is tough. But in one word,it would be “Variety”! The number of items on the buffet is just mind boggling,you could make a full meal out of just the starters,or the desserts or one of the specialized cuisine counters.

Started off with a chicken soup,which was pretty good. The starters section literally had an endless selection, Indian chats, Salads, kababs, it had it all. It was tough to chose from, in the end I went with some safe bets like the Hawaiian salad and tried out a few never-heard-of-it-before stuff as well. There’s a section where you can make your own salad as well, they keep ingredients that you can mix and match to your tastes. We didn’t even venture that side, not worth wasting time and precious appetite for.
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Just saw Clerks II for the second time yesterday. Undoubtedly one of the funniest movies ever! The character Randal,played by Jeff Anderson is just too good. Its amazing that he’s just an amateur actor and doesn’t even have a picture for his IMDB profile page! The movie is just non-stop comedy, and an excellent sequel to an equally good part 1. Those who haven’t seen it yet, go watch it! And trust me, you will love Randal(in a totally heterosexual way of course, if you are male)

Finally saw it last weekend. Got free tickets and the seats were at the last row and in the centre. Perfect place to watch the perfect movie from. The word “perfect” is something you would associate a lot with Aamir Khan and his work, and this movie is no different. Some parts of it are more like a documentary but it still is miles better than the usual shit Bollywood throws at us. The acting and the casting, superb! The music is quite unconventional(good job by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy) and Prasoon Joshi’s lyrics as usual are quite simple and interesting. It will no doubt transport you to your school days. The script might not be great(as in its predictable), the movie might drag in the middle but in the end its just a simple and extremely honest effort. Great job for a debutant director and Aamir Khan just reinforces the fact that hes the best Bollywood has. Must watch movie!

Dining out on the first weekend is a nice way to start the new year. Great way in fact, especially when it happens in one of Bangalore’s top restaurants. Deciding on Bombay Post wasn’t tough, it was close enough and most of us hadn’t been there before. Its right next to the Airport Road – 100 Feet Road fly over and on the same building as TGIF, Indi Joe and Corner House. And yes, its another BJN group restaurant(one of many) . Surprisingly, we didn’t have to wait for a table even though it was Saturday night.  The place and the cuisine,as the name suggests is inspired by Bombay and Bollywood in the 60s and 70s. Our table was overlooked by the villains of that generation, larger than life black and white potraits of Danny Denzongpa, Pran and Prem Chopra. Loud music, old fashioned ceiling fans, the feel of the place was quite authentic.

Now to the food.The menu looks quite similar to the other BJN restaurants serving Indian food but has an inclination towards sea food. We started off with some lamb shorba(trust me to forget those weird names) and Tandoori Pomfret, and tomato shorba and paneer rolls for the vegetarians.There was also a good selection of mocktails and coolers, and we ordered a fruit punch (called Churchgate something) and a mint cooler(it was a combination of mint,lime and Sprite if I’m not mistaken,it was great) The shorba was probably the low point of the meal, it was decent but nothing great. The starters on the other hand were heavenly, the Pomfrets were spicy,well marinated and grilled to perfection. The paneer rolls were pretty good as well. For the main course, we again decided to try some seafood and ordered Hariyali Jhinga(prawns). We also ordered some nans,kulchas and Makhani Murgh Post Special (which the waiter nonchalantly degraded to Butter chicken) The vegetarians went for some mixed vegetable curry(which i sadly didn’t try out) and yellow dal. The food was great and we had no complains whatsoever to lick those plates clean. The nans, as with all BJN restaurants were more roti like, but as long as its not hard like rotis, its fine. We finished off with some Shehenshahi Pulao which was as good as any other dish. The place is relatively expensive though, and the total bill came to around Rs 500+ per head. We decided to have dessert from nearby corner house although we did try out the caramel custard which was pretty decent. The service is great too and our orders hardly took any time. One of my best dining experiences in Bangalore yet.

Good food is probably the biggest love of my life.I thought I’d dedicate some posts to that love and review some of the restaurants I’ve been to.

Yesterday was my brother in law’s birthday and we were searching for a place for the birthday treat. It had to be a place we hadn’t been to and had to be moderately expensive as we had to meet a budget of at least Rs.2000(yes,not at most but at least). After some searching and filtering, we decided to go to this place called Oye Amritsar on Church Street. Its a rooftop dhaba and is relatively easy to spot. Its on the same building as Saigon and Ruby Tuesday. The decor as expected was true dhaba style with brightly painted wooden windows, milk cans etc.  The tables and chairs were simple and comfortable and the place was covered with funny  one-liners and name boards. And they serve in steel tumblers and steel plates,for the added effect(and an easy way to save costs i presume). Each table had mint chutney and the typical set of chopped onions, green chillies and pickles as well.

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