Its Friday!!!

Well, its not really Friday coz there is still one more day to go but the onset of thrusday just seems like a downhill drive..

 

I like to mix up things so that I get plently of time with my family, pampering my adorable nephew and niece, watching back to back episodes of Gossip Girl, meeting friends, going out for a movie/ dinner.

 

Last weekend was my first try of bringing Avu and Karan home. I mean just the kids.. It was superb with Avu giving her best smile and calling out to the woman in an ad in the newspaper as aunty (and buddhu's statue as uncle).

 

For this weekend, I have found a new restaurant that I need to review. I have never tried Bong cuisine though I am a big fan of their Jhal Muri and Puchkaas.. So for this week, Oh! Calcutta is what I fancy. Being a vegetarian, I'm not sure how much options I will get but I'm told that their Baigan Bhaja (read fried bhaigan) and luchi (read puri) are a must have.

 

Wait to hear from me again on how the place rates on my scale of ambience, food, service and value for money.

 

The place is not limited to Delhi and can be tried by food enthusiasts in Mumbai, Calcutta, Pune, Bangalore as well...

 

For Delhi the address is:

 

Oh! Calcutta

International Trade Tower,

E-Block, Ground Floor,

Nehru Place,

New Delhi - 110019.

Ph: 26464180

The Kanatal trip: Holyland, Haridwar

Post capturing the morning bliss and soaking in all the fresh air, I headed back to my tent.


Just a few hours left for us to start our return journey. The more time passed by, the more I was falling in love with the place. This generally does not happen to me as I am hard to please but the place had this uniqueness attached to it that it won me the moment I lay my eyes on it: a union of the calm, the enormous, the humble, the graceful.... like a cookie you had that was heated up to the right temperature for it to melt in your mouth.. ummm!


Anyway, home awaited me ... After a quick hot bath, we arrived at the dining area with our packed luggage. The stay seemed so short now and I was already thinking about coming back for a longer visit. Breakfast done and we sat outside with tea and coffee to say our last goodbye to the place.   


Thanking the people there for making our stay so good, we loaded our luggage in the car and started the descend. Next on our agenda was to stop over at Tehri Dam and from there to Haridwar. Since  we wanted to see the grand scale आरती that happens at हर की पौढ़ी, we left at 1130. Wel, we could have started earlier but our bat mobile just would not start and needed a kick to get warned up.

Our driver told us that general public is not allowed on the dam so we could do some boating at Tehri and after that he would drop us at the haridwar station. Just boating was not our idea for fun so we cancelled Tehri and decided to go straight to haridwar station. 

The drive was long and tiring. With the window on my side unwilling to wind up completely, the chill started to give me a headache. I decided to pull up a jacket and doze off, which proved to be a good decision as I had not slept much the day before.

We made one small stop at a construction site because of the view the place had.. simply breathtaking !!

Ya, We loved all the posing.. who wouldn't :)


Starting the journey again, I went back to sleep...

Haridwar:
The setup of tents was all for the preparation of Maha Kumbh.. Around 1330-1400 hrs we had reached Haridwar station. With finances settled, we proceeded to the station entry.. No we are not heading back home yet.. So much to see, how could be go now. Moreover, we had some 10 hours to utilize for which an amazing plan had already been chalked out.


Step 1: Check in the luggage in the cloak room. For frequent travelers who have checked out of their hotel, this is a boon. No worries about carrying all that luggage! It took us 5 mins to locate the cloak room, 2 to buy a lock for Sanghi and another 5 to get the luggage registred. That simple!... We were ready to spread our wings now.


Step 2: A quick snack for lunch, basically whatever good we could get. For now it was some cake...


Luggage taken care of, semi lunch done, we headed out of the station.. It felt like one of those college days, me and sanghi out on the streets with no specific agenda in mind, the first sign of being a true traveler.. वेल्ले लोग हम दोनों..


While travelling to any place, my idea of fun is to see it from the eye of a local.. As we walked towards the temple from the station, we crossed a spice market, then utensils and finally we were able to spot what our hippie eyes were looking for.. JUNK JEWELERY! We started to load ourselves with bangles, malas, ankelets.. whatever our eyes fancied. The weirdest of my shopping there had to be some speciality papads which goes to show that food is my first and foremost weakness.


I was trying to look for something that spoke of the place but could not find anything... so junk jewellery it was.

With the time of the aarti gaining on us, we headed towards the banks of ganges and saw this man making exquisite offering made out of flowers.

Haridwar is a chaotic place otherwise. We found ourselves a place to see the aarti and it took longer than expected to start. A fact about the daily prayer that happnes there is that the diya's for the aarti are lit at the same time. It was a sight in itself.

Finally we saw what we came for!

Hungry as hell, we asked the locals around for a place to have a decent meal. Two suggestions came up: Hoshiyaar Puri and Big Ben!

errrr, Big Ben?! Anyway, we moved on asking more shop keepers and hoshiyaar Puri seemed to be a popular choice. On a funny note, the name of restaurant was just not registering in my mind and I asked this local girl where Rajnikant hotel was... telling her people have suggested us to eat there. The exprssion on her face were note worthy! I laughed and told her the name was a bit odd so we dont remember. She gave a smile and told us its Hoshiyaari puri and gave is directions.

Following the path, we reached the place finally and it found it to be a hit among the locals as well as tourists. We ordered an array of things coz we had not eaten since morning and hogged and hogged!

Done with dinner we stepped out and saw we still had 3 hours to spare. Without having any meetha, I was looking around for a place to get something good: jalebis and ladoos maybe. This time we asked the shopkeepers for a nice place to have mithai. Prachin Mathura Wale was enormously suggested so we started the walk.

The place served some amazing besan laddoos. We had a few of them and moved towards the station.

Though the wait at the station was long, it was quite eventful with a bunch of monkeys scaring us (no fault of theirs as they were just just sitting silently next to us having biscuits), our quest to find a clean loo, an opiniated man in his late 50's spreading gyaan to a couple and the unbearable waiting room.

To sum up, the trip was a success and would act as a building block to many more to come.

WannaBe All American Diner

Having heard about the all American diner at India Habit Center for so long, I decided to check out the place and review it for myself.

Amidst the pruned landspace of India Habitat Center- the place has an impressive address for starters.

My hunger struck greedy eyes looked around the place...

To start with the place, it is tucked in a tiny area and felt claustrophobic, though the interiors were bright and peppy, synonymous to any diner: Neon lights.. pink in this case, myraid posters on the wall, jukebox, booth seating and the typical tissue dispensers.

I liked the way the various breakfast cereal were displayed on the counters for buffet and made me hungry instantaneously.

As we moved towards our seats, I was dissapointed to see the crammed seating space for two. It seemed like one booth was cut through the center to make space.

Soon however, I was distracted by the menu which seemed promising.. A good amount of options for us vegetarians, with the regular pancakes, waffles, hash browns, eggs to order and what not.

I had heard a lot about their pancakes and waffles so ordered the same and some hash browns on the side. Hearing the conversations of  people around, I definitely saw it as mecca for them wannabe's -  posing as intellectuals as soon as they stepped in.

5-10 mins and my pancakes finally arrived with the hash browns and there is when the array of dissapointment started...

1. Hashbrowns served to me did not look like hashbrowns!!! Dunno what I was served.
2. Pouring the syrup over the pancakes, as soon as I dug into my first bite, I realised the taste was all screwed up.
3. The texture of the pancake was too sticky and believe me I have had good pancakes that melt in one's mouth.
4. The meal portions were so tiny that it seemed like a joke.

This experience stopped me from ordering more. I wonder when these world cuisine eateries will stop being stingy in their meal sizes as they definitely aren't stingy when it comes to presenting the bill.

I give the place a thumbs down and the following rating:

Food: 2/5
Ambience: 2.5/5
Service: 2/5
Value for money: 1.5/5

I'm now on a lookout for a place to have an amazing breakfast and the menu has changed from american to our very own piping hot spicy South India... Yummm

Look out coz this year winters weekends are sizzling!!!!!

Come weekend and we all are filled with this immense energy that is just too in your face to miss out. More so when the weather outside is just perfect to do anything, I feel I can just fly..

Well, like any of you, my weekend is also a routine (lucky me, only sometimes) but the break away from the 5 days of mundane life is so irresistible that I fall prey to it. My theory is to keep the weekend on its toes for I can't sit idle and waste a perfect day just sitting around.

For all your foodies out there, indulge in a nice brunch: Take time out for yourself! My take on enjoying your meals is doing so while listening to some nice music. Why not treat your body and soul... I ended up making a decent meal for myself both days: Hot and steamy Idlys with Sambhar and porridge/Omelette loaded with veggies with a hot cuppa herbal tea.

I just can't do without my green tea and the best part is that you can create an infusion out of anything that you fancy. My next tea is gonna be all about rose/ jasmine. I can already see me enjoying the all goodness and the aroma...

I love those morning jogs at 5:30 when the street are loaded with nothing but the morning mist and dim yellow street lights twinkling through them.

Add to that your favourite music and voila you got a perfect start to a prefect day!! I am a fan of the oldies and new age music just doesn't do it for me. If you have heard the soundtrack of What Women Want, you'll know what I am talking about.

I've got you under skin,

I've got youuuu deep in the heart of me,

so deep in my heart that you're really a part of me,

I've got you under my skin

Next on my agenda is stepping out and doing what I do best... Just being myself

Sunday Brunch

With another Sunday, another week gone by... So, this time I decided to try something new and treat myself to a nice Brunch. Well, it could have been a breakfast as well, but lazy me, I just could not wake up in time.

For me, it has to be about health as well (whatever the ignorant me knows that is!) so to start with, I decided to try the current favourite mantra, detoxification. Thanks to a recent visit to a family friend where I tried some green tea, it got me reading about all the goodness they offer.

I found out that green tea is all dried herbs / flowers / fruits and how it helps cure the most difficult of ailments like diabetes, arthritis... We are after all all dust and bone so why not?!

Though yesterday's shopping spree did make me buy a tin of organic green tea from FabIndia, I still wanted to try cooking up a home made concoction. So I made myself a purer and customized green tea with some fennel, black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, basil, cardamon and cloves.

Now I prefer my green tea with some honey and after an infusion for 5 mins, a healthy meal of green tea with some toasted bread with plum crush and loads of fruits felt like the food of the Gods!

With my voracious diet, I had to move to the next course and decided to cook some sauteed mushrooms with a spiced up onion and tomatoes sauce loaded with garlic... yummmm! Mushrooms go very well with rice so my obvious choice was rice.

Its 3:40 p.m. and I am still deciding on something sweet to give closure to my taste buds.

All the cooking was made possible with a playlist of peppy music .. LOUD and CLEAR from my room to the kitchen!!

Bon Appetit to ones who want to try it out next weekend..............