Drive By Eating.

Dilettante and I went to Arabian Savoury for dinner. On the way back, we were astounded by the sheer number and variety of restaurants on MM Road. So, with you dear blog reader in mind, we went back and put together a couple of brief video clips showing the variety available.



In order:

1. Some place whose name eludes me. Right by the pharmacy. They make the best Kheema-Anda-Pav for breakfast.
2. Taj Biryani. Pass.
3. Mughal Chef. Awesome Bombay style biryani.
4. Aiwas Broast Chicken. 'nuff said.
5. Random bakery.
6. Barwachi. Good biryani.
7. Richies. The best biryani, mutton chops, tandoori roti and dal fry this side of town.
8. Passable bakeries and booze shops.
9. The tea-shop at the end of the road is worth a stop.
10. On the other side of the road, by the mosque, is Bombay Chowpatty Kulfi. Bloody good stuff.
11. Before that, Wang's Kitchen, hardcore Indian Chinese, and Namdari's. Good vegetables, fruits and salads. Best place in town for fresh herbs.

Then we decided, why not show you some of the other restaurants in the area, Mosque Road and Wheeler Road. We've left St. John's Church Road for next time.

Once again, in order:

1. Tea stall. Not bad but no sulemani.
2. Arabian Savoury. Great food. See our previous post.
3. Old, hole-in-the-wall biryani place. Pass.
4. Casio Gift Shop and Caiso Supermarket. Not houses of dining but you just know they're run by Mallus don't you!
5. Rendezvous. Great bread-pudding. Food isn't too bad either.
6. There is a Beijing Bites diagonally across from Rendezvous. And a Walls ice-cream parlour. BB is pretty damn good for Chinese and Thai, even if it is a tad expensive.
7. Albert Bakery. The best damn mutton and vegetable samosa in Bangalore. Bar none. Get there by 4 PM, it sells out by 5 PM. Their Khoya Naan is a sight for clogged arteries too.
8. Now we're on Wheeler Road cross, or something like that. Decent Darshini.
9. Lusitania Cold Store. Best place in town for fresh meats and pre-cooked and ready-to-cook meat. Shezan has better fresh, aged beef though. Yes, that Shezan. The one on Cunningham Road.
10. Mezban used to be my default place in the area. Haven't been there in a while so can't couch for it in its new avatar.
11. The place on the corner, Keerthi Sagar, in an earlier incarnation used to be the de facto hanut for Chaat junkies. Dunno now.
12. Mangalore Pearl. Coastal food. Haven't been there. Used to be Golden Harvest. Our “treat” when we were kids and the grandparents were in town.
13. Kowloon, at the front of the same building, used to have Chinese Chopsuey worth travelling for.
14. KC Das. 'nuff said.
15. Sherlock Holmes. 'nuff said. Again.
16. Juice shop. What can I say, it's a juice shop. No better, no worse.
17. Taipan, for when you crave Punjabi Chinese!
18. Bar. Dingy. Pass. Go to Dewar's instead. You don't know where that is? I'm not telling...
19. Shahi Kebab Centre. Better than Fanoos. Yes, it is. Try it but go early for the Boti. Ask for extra lime and onion. Mmmmm! Good! More!
    
20. Zak's. Gah!
21. Anonymous Shanti Sagar. Same old, same old.
22. Nandhini. Good prawn curry rice. Better meals at RR and much better biryani and chicken “items” at Nagarjuna.
23. There is a new joint called Burger Place or Palace on the road that intersects. It's attached to a gaming cafe called The Edge. Not worth visiting, in particular, but if you're in the area, drop by.
24. Red Lantern. Anonymous Chinese.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm hungry again. Wonder if Dilettante is, maybe we'll do St. John's Church Road. As always, comments/rants/raves in the comments below please. Where else!

Have a good week.

Update:

To answer the "Where is MM Road?" question, here's a picture to help you out. View it full size.

Recluse on CNN IBN.

This is a follow-up to the post Recluse did on the blog ban issue. He featured on CNN-IBN today. Pity he didn't have his URL printed on his shirt!

"There is no provision in the IT Act as it stands now for them impose such a ban in the first place," lawyer and blogger, Gopal Sankaranarayanan says.

"What we don't know is if such bans have been imposed in the past there are millions and billions of sites that we don't access everyday that could be blocked," Sankaranarayanan says.

Read more at here.

Video of the interview below, Recluse features at the 1 minute 11 second and 1 minute 42 second marks. You'll need to crank up the volume.

Piggy Five

“Intruders at three o’clock...”

“Snipers in position, sir...”

“How many are there lieutenant?”

“I see three sir, they are masquerading as a family, no, wait, make that six, sir!”

“Are they armed, soldier?”

“No sir, but they are massively corpulent!”

“Our orders are clear, take the shot sniper...”

“Understood. Order executed. Six intruders terminated, sir!”
...........................................................

Inspired by this story. (Hat-tip to Provo).

...........................................................

Recluse has replied to this story here. (As Chamique is travelling...)

.

Fiddy Five

“I like your T-shirt”, Amaan says, pointing to the G Unit inscribed on my chest.

“Thanks man”, I reply.

“So whatchu listen to?” he asks.

“Nelly, Fiddy, you know…”

“Pac?

“Um, no..”

“Biggie? Em?”, hoping to forgive my transgression.

“...not really”

“Man. You don’t know rap.”

What? I’m not giving away my T-shirt.
Precocious brat.

Windsor Pub 3.85/5.00

Chamique, Paz, Jenx, Nicki, Aleph, Dilettante and I went to Windsor Pub for dinner on Saturday. (Sorry, no pictures!)

It's one of my favourite places to eat. The food is strangely comforting, with curry leaf and coconut. Their prawns, the Masala Fried version, is to die for.(Madjos, Aleph and I one ate a good twenty plates of it.) We loved their Chilly Cheese Toast and the Spicy Chicken Sausages in Hot Garlic Sauce. Their Coorgi Pandhi Curry and Mallu Erachi Olatheuthe are signature dishes. As is their Seafood Soup.

Aleph favours the Kingfish steak, Chamique the Prawn Curry and Appams, Dilettante the Kerala Chilly Chicken and Dosas, Paz the Fish and Chips. The seafood is really very good. Other must trys are the Egg and Kheema Parota and the Kothu Parota. Did I say I like the food? And the other thing is, the beer is fresh and strong, well as strong as draught beer can be. And a glass is free with every entree.

Music is a little loud at times, the crowd is always fun but the ventilation can get stuffy at times. Oh, and make sure you have the Tosca Cake with Ice Cream for dessert. You'll find it nowhere else and it is worth it. WP treats old customers like old friends and make me go back again and again.

Oh, and if you're in the mood for Waffles and other Continental cuisine, try Cafe De Lekkerbek. Seems like a good place to visit and I love waffles.

Chamique

Three hundred and sixty five days.
Fifteen thousand visitors.
Ninety posts.

Happy Birthday

Unforgettables

A few weekends ago, a bunch of us (Chamique, Paz, Recluse, Aleph, Jenx, Nic, Dilettante & yours truly) went for a musical concert performed by the Bangalore School of Music.

It was called the Unforgettables. And it was. I wish I'd have that much gumption at that age. The music wasn't too bad and the dancing was quite fabulous. Really. Have a look.




Oh, and take a look at this new India-centric social bookmarking site.


Putvote.Com

Stats

Boring, unless you're a geek. But interesting, if you are one.

Jobless Pictures #52

So Alephnull and I went and took part in KQA's XVIII Anniversary Quiz. On our way to lunch , outside Guru Nanak Bhavan we saw this very cool Ambassador.


With very cool interiors.
btw, we got rather badly mauled in the prelims.

Met Beedi and his brand-new missus with some janta at KC Das the day before they flew back to Philly. Photograph of sleeping dogs outside the window.


Superbikes on trucks. Being transported to Jakkur for a drag, apparently.

The blue one on the left is a Kawasaki Ninja and the red and black one next to it is a CBR. Couldn't identify the other ones. Not conspicuous enough lettering :-)

Flash Friday

As the sun set on the cityscape, he vaulted out of his happy reverie and commenced his nocturnal rituals.

To dress in freshly laundered whites, gird the loose ties of his battledress, guard his lustrous crown with protective headgear, sharpen his knives and to arrange his mise en place.

The bistro had opened for dinner…

-----
And Chamique's response really does improve this one! Merci, cher dîneur!

The last Delhi post

Trippin' in Delhi, saw this notice outside Jantar Mantar.
"Maintain Decency". Guess people find nooks and crannies inside the strange yantras to be, erm, indecent. Heh!


Sweet looking India Gate, at night.

Futility

This gem is from the Metro page of todays edition of the New Indian Express. What can I say!

It's Back!

Blogspot and Typepad are back! On BSNL in Bangalore atleast...

*phew*

"We now continue with regular programming."

1984

Making this post sticky so it stays on top for the duration of this stupid ban. Updates, as and when available, at the bottom of this post.

Also, all you bloggers, please don't stop blogging. That would be a failure on our part and giving in to the GOI vicissitudes.

So it looks like some ISPs in India are blocking access to Blogger and to Blogspot.

Wonder if we had anything to do with it?! ;-)

There are a few ways to get around this stupid ploy.

Idiots.

Perhaps Gsanks can compile list of songs to play while driving down to the MoT and then he could draft us a letter too!

Update 1:

Looks like Airtel has jumped the shark too. Anonymizer, public proxies and what not till such time as the GoI regains its common sense.

Chamique notices the problems too...

Gsanks as well...

The problem is only with Blogspot and not Blogger. So you can post but not read.

Start using a Feedreader, preferably a web-based one. Bloglines and Google Reader are good starts.

You might want to sign-up at the Indian Bloggers Collective.

Update 2:

Use the Right To Information Act. Get writing now!

Update 3:

Recluse has some thoughts on the legal options.

It looks like pkblogs has now been blocked too.

For the conspiracy theorists in you, this and this makes an interesting read.

VSNL and BSNL seem to have killed access to Blogspot, Typepad and Geocities too. Strangely, I'm on BSNL and can access the Blogspot just fine. But only Blogspot.

Rock on Freedom of Press!

Update 4:

To get around this stupid block, use Coral Cache. Essentially, you need to append

.nyud.net:8080

to to the hostname of any URL you want to access. For example, to access this post via CC, you would have to use a link as follows:

http://doesthisthat.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/2006/07/1984.html

"Blogger does not seem to be blocked, but Blogspot is. That means a terrorist, if there's one using blogger to conceive plots, can still publish his information, and anyone with RSS feeds can still read what he is saying anyways." ~ zai

Some of the sites that have been blocked are:

• hinduunity.org
• hinduhumanrights.org
• princesskimberley.com
• bloodspot.com
• dalitstan.org
• clickatell.com
• blogspot.com
• geocities.com
• typepad.com

Princess Kimberly? WTF?

/. picks up the thread. Digg as well. BoingBoing too.

Blogger.com seems positively zippy today!

Update 5:

Poo. BSNL have blocked me out...

Update 6:

Aleph has put together a Greasemonkey script to work around this stupid limitation by rewriting all Blogspot URLs to go via Coral Cache.

You need:

1. Firefox 1.5
2. Greasemonkey
3. His special sauce aka the script.

Install them in that order and have fun.

Note that it will work only on links that you click on. GM can only operate on documents (rendered HTML). If there is a way of controlling the address bar, do let us know in the comments!

And a big hat-tip to Aleph too...

Update 7:

Recluse informs us that he has spoken with people who have Google in the loop and they are currently exploring legal options as regards the ban on Blogspot. He is also in touch with the legal department of a large ISP and will post updates as and when they become available. As a lawyer, he is not sure if we, as bloggers, or the ISP's have much of a leg to stand on.

Aleph has updated the GM script. This renames Geocities, Blogspot and Typepad URLs. It is easy to add further sites too. BTW, he stands corrected about the impossibility of rewriting the location bar. It is possible and an attempt was made and commented out.

Comments to alephnull at hcoop dot net. Distributed under the GPL

Update 8:

Additions to the list of blocked blogs via IE:

• pajamaeditor.blogspot.com
• exposingtheleft.blogspot.com
• princesskimberly.blogspot.com
• commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot.com
• mypetjava.mu.nu
• thepiratescove.us
• hinduhumanrights.com/hindufocus.html
• rahulyadav.com
• dalitstan.com
• macker-old.com
• merrimusings.typepad.com

Read 'em and weep.

Update 9:

Managed to get the rest of the links, bringing the total up to 17. Here they are:

http://barnapachyderm.com
http://mackers-world.com
http://andh.com
http://bloodroyaltriped.com This may very well be http://bloodroyal.tripod.com
www.imagesearchyahoo.com What the fuck?
www.imamali8.com

Chamique has a great post up, do read it!

Opus. Sucks.

It does indeed.

Or so the dudes at Bangalore Torpedo say. And they have posted a follow-up to the comments received at the original post. Bloody hilarious it is.

By the way, it's also an awesome blog...

Opus have a blog of their own. And this post is stomach crunchingly funny. They even have a blog for their trademark Karaoke Nights.

Must do a full review soon. Even if Dilettante and Chamique are partial to the place...

Comment Tracking

If you, like me, obsessively follow comments on your own blog or on blogs where you've left comments, then this tool is for you. It allows you to:

"track all comments you make on blogs and track the resulting conversations when commenters respond."

Pretty useful, what?

Give it a shot @ CoComment

India Habitat Centre

Foist, hat tip to MayMad for recommending the place to kill time while in Delhi. It was the highlight of my trip there. Outstanding place.

Quote below the IHC logo of Jawaharlal Nehru saying "You should not tolerate ugliness anywhere in your life, in your activities, in your buildings." RSP Architects and Thomas Associates should learn this dictum and apply it to their work.




At the Visual Arts gallery, Osian's was hosting this cool Asian Art Exhibition to coincide with their Asian Film Festival.

Samurai armour. Tom Cruise, anyone?


Tourism posters from Asia peddling India and the rest of the Orient.
Clockwise, left to right: Visit India with an Image of the Sanchi Stupa, Orient Calls, Kanchenjunga, Visit India with a reproduction of a fresco from Ajanta.


Film posters from South East Asia and India.

Clockwise from top left: Unidentifiable, Unidentifiable, Kurosawa's Ran, Ran, Ran, Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.
(Of course, unidentifiable (UI) means I wasn't paying enough attention)


The coolest exhibit on show. Poster of Apocalypse Now.


Right wall Clockwise, top left: Benegal's Junoon, North by northwest, UI, The Seven year Itch, UI, UI.
The 2 UI posters on the left are of Satyajit Ray film shows. Complete with date and hall location, sweet!


Clockwise, top right: For a few dollars (sic), The Good, The Ugly and The Bad (sic again), Vertigo, UI.



Cartoon from the 70s by Something-Prosad Ganguly.

Reminds me of the time I was trying to misappropriate Mohayana's Mao T-shirt. Back in the day in China, posters were the most effective and economical form of spreading the word, apparently. Better than radio, even.



Outside the Visual Arts Centre, in some random lobby were these 2 Madhubani Paintings.



Sculpture tiled Adam and Eve.


In a place reeking with Indian culture and other such, it's strange to find The All American Diner. Complete with Wurlitzer jukebox.

Fifty Five.

The fridge was bare, as was the larder. It only reflected the emptiness that her absence had caused.

She took everything they had; he was the fool for believing her when she said, “until death do us part”.

But more than anything else, he missed the pitter-patter of tiny feet echoing in the hallways.


Update:

Chamique has posted a reply. Fun this is!

Dilli

Went to Delhi for a day and a half. The weather aparently had cooled down to 30 deg C, ridiculous I tell you. Still, it was decent enough weather ie cloudy, to walk from place to place and catch a rick to here and there.

Lots of pictures were taken at a lot of places. Couldn't go to Karim's in Old Delhi with food that "physically elated" Bangalore Bytes, or Turquoise Cottage that I constantly read about here. Anyway, here is a sample - the rest in dedicated posts.

Lift in Yardbird's apartment in Gurgaon. Scared of the 13th Floor? Don't have one!

Table covered with tarpaulin outside the apartment building selling Tropicana Premium Gold, amongst other things.
Delhi Metro. Good stuff.

Update: Other posts here and here.

Bombay, We Salute You.

"If you are late for work in Mumbai and reach the station just as the train is leaving the platform, don't despair. You can run up to the packed compartments and find many hands unfolding like petals to pull you on board. And while you will probably have to hang on to the door frame with your fingertips, you are still grateful for the empathy of your fellow passengers, already packed tighter than cattle, their shirts drenched with sweat in the badly ventilated compartment. They know that your boss might yell at you or cut your pay if you miss this train. And at the moment of contact, they do not know if the hand reaching for theirs belongs to a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a Brahmin or an Untouchable. Come on board, they say. We'll adjust."

from Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

Quote courtesy tamasha on SM.

For The Love Of The Game.

Seen at the Barista on Residency Road.


On Church Street, opposite Barton Centre. What fun. More American dining options. Their tagline used to be, "Awesome Food, Serious Salad Bar".

Anyone been to a Ruby Tuesday outlet? Comments?

The Panjab. And Delhi. And Inbetween.

Just a big random bunch of images from a work trip to Panjab and Delhi. Some from the road. Some from hotels. Quick review, awesome roads and other infrastructure. Crazy food, panner and/or ghee/butter/milk/cream in everything we ate from Channa to Rajma to Dal to Rotis to Kheer. The craziest bit was the deep fried, tawa cooked paratha served with butter and curd. Like that only the place is. And who would have though, fabulous Vada Sambar at the Ludhiana train station.

A view of the Delhi Ridge from the Maurya.

The lobby at the Maurya.

More ridgey goodness.

Full fat Dahi, served with the aforementioned Paratha. Look for the fly in the curd!
Party bar in Ludhiana! Open till 3 AM. Take that Bangalore!

Mmmmm... fried goodness. Chandigargh.

More of the same!

Sambar Vada, as attested to above.

Dhabha meal between Chandigarh and Ludhiana.

One whole liter of Lassi.

Green, green fields of home. They grow paddy in Panjab. Who knew.

Same. Like that.

Ketta cool mode of transport.

Question, if any, in the comments and I'll answer 'em all.

55. Redux.

Tears streamed down his face as he hung up.

Accepting that he'd never escape the living memories her voice had wrought. Knowing no matter how far he ran, he'd never escape the love they shared.

But she did what she had to do; created in her a monster that broke through the rules of love.

Posted in reply to this by Chamique.

Jobless Pictures

This one is from CHM Road. I wonder if this project will ever see the light of day. Has anyone seen the signs at the proposed station locations? The one on Old Madras Road will apparently be in a Church, the one in Ulsoor is in a housing comples, the one on MG Road is in the erstwhile Plaza Theatre... Lighta crazy this be...


Now what on earth does this mean? Anyone?

Click Me. Now!

Click Me!

Hee! You can change the leading name and you'll have your very own personal pimp.