Tuesday 30 December 2008

Fooding around New BEL Road, Bangalore


After spending so many years loafing around this area. I can confidently say, this area has got what no other place can offer in terms of food.

First smell of tea/coffee you can get around this place is as early as 4:00 in the morning. The place is the bakery opposite M.S. Ramaiah Hospital signal. During exam times, you can see many students sitting there, early morning, to have their by-two tea, apart from regular bun samosa, bun butter jam, maggi e.t.c. I must admit, I miss
Bashir's Bakery (Kwality Bakery) sorely. Levi's showroom has taken its place now.

Regular South Indian breakfast is available from 7 o'clock onwards. My place of choice is Sagar Samrat. Not to forget George Mess for the authentic Malyali breakfast.

Though this is not on New BEL Road, I could not stop myself from mentioning this one. A lone and small tiffin center on the Mathikere market road (near Mathikere bus stop), serves quality Andhra style breakfast. I liked the "Pudi Dosa" of this place a lot. The specialty of this dosa is, it has a typical homemade powder inside it, which gives a lovely spicy taste and the dosa itself is so crispy that it simply melts in your mouth. Do not miss it. The thatte idlis (hearing the name friends from up North often break into laughter) are the giant idlis, which are the other specialty of this tiffin center. Remember all these places opens by 7 in the morning.

You can try some non-veg Kerla cuisine for breakfast at Casino as well. Dosa, appam, or idiappam with some chicken curry. The only problem is Casino opens quite late.

Moving ahead for the lunch and dinner. New BEL road is quite full of them. The typical Andhra style chicken or mutton biryani served at Nandhini is simply delicious. Sagar Samrat is another good place for a good veg meals.

Now, I will mention my favorite food combo. The New Shanthi Sagar, towards the RMV Club Signal, is my pick of the eatery. Simply cause of the taste of whatever they prepare. Remember, there is no place to sit and eat here, but it is good for getting your food parceled. You can always choose to stand and eat. The items from this place which are always on my hitlist are, Mughlai Biryani & Tomato Raita combination as well as Kaju Masala. They are not only tasty, but very cheap on your pocket too. Try them to trust me. If you stay around this area, and have not yet eaten these two dishes, Maaannn! You are missing something.

Staying in this area, always keep the phone numbers of Chicken County in your mobile phones. They are quite good for dry chicken items. The best part is they deliver even on a stormy night.

There are a hell lot of messes around this place. Two time food in these
messes could be as cheap as Rs. 750 (Unlimited) to almost Rs. 2000 (Unlimited).

The Sindhi Mess is one of the best mess for North Indian veg food around here. Cannot miss mentioning Ramu Mess, he is tough to reach and you have to contact some student or hostelite from the MS Ramaiah college to get in touch with him. His food is cheap (around Rs. 900) and good and arrives always on time. You can see him zipping around on a TVS moped with bags full of tiffins in them. He does only door to door services.

Tasty Corner, or Geroge's mess is another favorite place of mine, especially for that Fried Fish and Liver Fry Masala. Authentic food from Kerla you can get here and nowhere else. And, yes yes, including the famous Meen Curry with Tapioca. Meen curry is a fish curry, with red spiciest of sauce I have ever tasted; it is eaten with boiled and mashed tapioca (something like potato). Trust me, it is yum!

Messes from every region and every taste can be found here eg, Bengali mess, Andhra mess, and so on.

Near to Tasty Corner, there is a small Tiffin center, serves delicious taste
of Tamil Nadu in his Idli and dosas. The Mottey dosa (egg dosa) is only served here among other few places in Bangalore and is open till late at night.

Around college, sometimes you could also see food made on roadside thela's. Sometimes just because of strict policing. They serve quick aloo parathas, and whatever form of egg you desire. Roadside Autos as well, which start functioning around evening, cook delicious Indo-Chinese style food.

For junkies too, it has all major Pizza companies, Coffee Day, and Barista.

Too many big Andhra-style family restaurants and bars are here, e.g. Nandhini, Mayuri, e.t.c. Beijing bites is the pick of all the Chinese restaurants here.

Iyengar bakery has delicious chocolate cream buns apart from other big range of cakes, pastries, and traditional Tamil namkeens.

For food loving working bachelor's it is a heaven. For married people, lots of places for home quick delivery (which does burn a hole in your pocket!).

Overall, perfect place to stay in Bangalore and be free of any eating worries.

Guten Apetit!

Sunday 28 December 2008

Chinese Proverbs of Wisdom



Taoism, a 2000+ years old religion of China, has always inspired beautiful words of wisdom. These words are simple, practical, and yet so utterly intelligent. Taoism's high regard (in fact worship) of nature and spirits of their ancestors is quite evident from these phrases.

I am posting here are a few of my most loved ones. I hope they enlighten your soul.

1. A horse cannot gain weight if not fed with extra fodder during the night; a man cannot become wealthy without earnings apart from his regular salaries.

2. An inch of time is an inch of gold but you can't buy that inch of time with an inch of gold.

3. The longer the night lasts, the more our dreams will be.

4. No wind, no waves.

5. One cannot refuse to eat just because there is a chance of being choked.

6. You think you lost your horse? Who knows, he may bring a whole herd back to you someday.

7. You won't help shoots grow by pulling them up higher.

8. Don't open a shop unless you like to smile.

9. Even a hare will bite when it is cornered.

10. My House (Barn) Burned Down; Now I Can See the Moon

11. The water that bears the ship is the same that engulfs it.

12. The woman who tells her age is either too young to have anything to lose,or too old to have anything to gain.

13. There are two perfectly good men, one dead and the other unborn.

14. Those who hear not the music, think the dancers are mad.

15. Wait long, strike fast.

16. It is the beautiful bird which gets caged – Confucius

17. It is only when the cold season comes that we know the pine and cypress to be evergreens.

18. One's good deeds are only known at home; one's bad deeds far away.

19. Rotten wood cannot be carved.

20. Those who know, when they have enough, are rich.

Thursday 4 December 2008

Religion - A blessing which became the curse of society

How an individual might behave, is tough to predict; but behavior of a group of individuals, can be predicted to astonishing extents.

Probably, this must have been the basis on which the first religion would have been founded upon.

I am imagining a group of people, in prehistoric times. Living on the bank of some river, which flows across a forest and hills.

The religion must have had a set of rules. It must have had let the individuals be individuals, but made them adhered to rules when their actions could change the course of life of the community.

Who made these rules? Elders ofcourse. By now, they have seen a lot. So, like a seasoned chess player, they laid out the rules. They must have constantly added, deleted, and/or edited the rules, to suit all 4 weathers first few years; then few more after catastrophes.

Individuals must have had different reasons to follow the rule; love, fear, threat, and so on.

Now, here comes the problem. Too many regions and altogether different types of rules. Still every group were safe in their zones. Just because there were so few people on the planet!

Well, then what... evolution in human brains was taking place as well. Medicines, engineering, etc, made life easier and safer. Population grew, land area shrank. Rules became religions (again region specific).

I must say, Einstein's E=MC2 survived the test of quite a lot of time, but but but... Unknown = God has survived millions of years.

With evolution in human body & brains, evolution (addition, deletion & edition) in religions happened as well. Crossover of religions into regions took place and then came "my god and my rules (religion)are supreme".

What was once a way of life became a matter to fight, kill, and die for.

Can anybody spot the exact problem here?

Yes, it is the population growth. The sole root of all the troubles in the world.

Till the time it is not taken care of, bad things will happen to the world. Better be late than never. Before people start thinking about terrorism, politics, oil reserves, ecology, disease, economy, etc. they should devote maximum efforts to address this sole root of all problems in the world "the population".

Excuse me O sales people of various trades. This might affect your sales target.

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