Viva la Pondichery, seconde partie

'Sunburnt and pot bellied', apt description as I stepped back into campus for the remaining 5 terms of MBA from a wonderful break to Pondicherry (now officially called Puducherry). Still stuck with a ridiculous patch of un-tanned skin around my eyes due to sunglasses, currently making me like a comic book super hero, I aimed to write this article down before I lost the tan and the memories.

My second sojourn to Pondicherry, this time with a much more boisterous group bent on vacationing with a vengeance. We did a lot which cannot be accommodated (or should be mentioned) in one blog

So heres a quick write down:

Where we stayed:
L'ESCALE Pondicherry - a quaint and surprisingly affordable boutique hotel on the street parallel to the promenade. Superbly located in the french town (white town), very close to the best attractions in the town and well connected. That is, if you are looking for a Pondicherry experience and not a resort experience for which there are plenty of resorts along the coast. But thats no fun since you cant swim in the waters due to the dangerous currents and narrow beaches. L'escale  is definitely a worth stay and a worth revisit.

Where we ate and what did we eat:
As planned, all we did was eat, relax and ride bikes around town. So chronologically:

Baker Street: Ironic, its a french bakery named after a fictional english scene. Nicolas the hotel landlord recommended  as with all of his  accurate and helpful suggestions, for a quick lunch. It seems to be 

a popular boulangerie with a wide selection of baked goodies and snacks. In total, we visited this place 3 times.

Le Vietnam: A vietnamese joint, my pals tried while I napped - pretty decent for a bit of the variety. The 'Chaiyo' - fried vietnamese snacks got good reviews here.

Rendezvous Cafe Restaurant: This was one of the highlights of our food journey. Very good and wide selection of food. A bit on the expensive side though really good food, service. Unfortunately, as with several things in Pondi, this place closes early so make sure you reach early.

Satsanga Restaurant: Its a big open air restaurant with ultra slow service, bad food and loads of mosquitoes for company. Though it seemed to attract a lot of foreign crowd, I guess the place appealed to a different crowd from us perhaps, though this place I feel was a mistake.

Le Cafe

Le Cafe: The Historic cafe located on the promenade, I made up for missing this must do in my last visit. Its a cafe situated at a wonderful location built a rustic way. The place was run tardily though which was a shame. We had the usual breakfast and though breakfast over looking the sea in a french cafe was pretty unique.

La Terrase: This was the best food I had in Pondicherry and the last meal of the visit, which was lunch. Diagonal to our hotel, right next to the iconic Le Club - which we skipped, something for another visit perhaps.Tasty, quick food and great service from this place. I wished we had heard of this place before. What was especially good was the offerings for the vegetarians, the freshness of the food, the juice and the taste again worth mentioning. Though there is a difference of opinion with a few of my friends, the desserts for example didnt match up to the other courses that we had.

While not eating:
Apart from earning the tan on our two wheelers, the compulsory visit to auroville was accomplished. Auroville is an impressive achievement for the followers and I feel a visit inside the Matrimandir (the meditation dome) might be worth experiencing.

Surfing - was sorely missed. I wanted a go at round 2 after my initiation to surfing in Manipal. The Surf school was closed due to a surfing competition which was quite a spectacle. It was held near the pier close to the rocks off the promenade which made for a thrilling photo opp.

The french style architecture of houses with wide doors set against bright and long pastel colored walls with framed windows, the prevalence of artsy nooks, almost cobbled streets and stylish cafes  makes for a great photo essay. The above picture captured by Pranay, one of many good ones.

There are probably other activities to be done, all aimed at leisure and variety. Though expecting a lot of action and excitement in this town might be a bad idea. So with the right expectation, time and right amount of Sun screen lotion , this is a great place for a weekend.

Hungry in US - Monterray, CA: Indian Summers

Do you know the Chinese food in India. Its not Chinese. Here is what is happening to Indian food. Well not the exact analogy, since Indian is so unique you can only go so far as to corrupt it..anyways hungry from our long drive we come down to the nice city of Monterey in the night. Read that this place is a tourist destination - well not in the night.

Indian Summers. Music is arabic, not a single desi in sight. Its definitely a happening place, but chilly and the fireplace you see in the pic is not for show. You need the fire to keep warm. Well food, me and Sharayu tried to Non veg with Spicy Fried fish not spicy, Chik Jalfrezi - mysteriously spicy since we didnt see chillies. The veggies had a good time with the Maakhanwala, the dal and the peas jeera rice. They even went as far to say this was the best they had! Come on now Non Veg is also food, you have to make both of them good.

Anyways we had to leave before the Reggae band started playing. Yes Reggae band in and Indian Restaurant. On the expensive side...

On a foodie blog roll! No.3:

Hungry in US - Aptos, CA: Manuel's Mexican

I was growing loathsome about Mexican food in the US. Mexican is close to the Indian cuisine, but I just simply didnt like the fast food version. Until we got hungry along CA1 and decided to have some mexican. Thank you GPS, for guiding us to this delightful place. I like mexican now, especially at Manuel's.

Hemant guided the vehicle to this blink and you miss restaurant. This place is pretty old with and old style mexican tavern feel to it. The service was very warm and friendly. We needed a lot of guidance with the orders since we were new to this authentic cuisine which is unlike that of taco bells. Lot of variety for Non Veggies. We didnt want to risk anything meaty on the road so we opted for everything Vegetarian. Which again the hostess guided us. The Cheese Enchilada I had ordered was enchanting. Delicately made pockets of veg stuffed with cheese and covered in a wonderful tomato bean gravy melted in my mouth. Sharayu had the Quesadillas and the guys had the traditional Bean Burrito which were pretty decent. The Salsa Fresca was adequately hot. The Mexican equivalent of masala Papad - the Tortillas and Habanero sauce kept on coming. We generally dont have deserts, cause in the US, the portions are huge. Still we decided for the hostess's suggestion and again she hit the sweet spot with Flan and Mexican ice cream - a nicely spiced (not hot spice) chocolate ice cream which she described as 'her favorite ice cream'. Its really really good.

For those who would want to know and should know, they do not take Amex :)

My Holiday in Ruins

I wanted a getaway, from a lot of things. Work, pollution, grey cubicles and routine; just seek new experiences. My friend’s wedding started a perfect getaway in the last weekend of May. Joining me on the trip was Krishna, best known by everyone as KK, and Anirudh. A Tamilian, a Telegai and a part Maharashtrian Kannadiga (myself) who spoke 5 languages amongst themselves and spent a weekend on an unplanned trip in the great outdoors. How best to spend the weekend eh?

Saturday morning we reached my Mom’s native of Dharwad. Dharwad, the Oxford of Karnataka. I spent many a vacations in this quite town. Green and cosy, this wasn’t a village nor was it too big to make its citizens feel lost in it. Its University is marvelous and its education renowned. I loved the rains here. Everything would be so fresh and green. The Hordes of black faced Langurs have stopped marauding the fruit trees in the ancestral home. There is no ancestral home anymore to speak of now. It was years since I had been to this place. This was a wonderful opportunity to go back to those years.

The night in the train was a sleepless one. We arrived haggard at the place we were put up called Sevashram. It was a Christian institute with dorms. We freshened and changed quickly into Kurtas which we had coordinated. KK looked like he was coming straight from a communist party meeting. The marriage venue had my Family name, a lot of places do in Dharwad. The guys were teasing that I owned half of Dharwad. We decided to walk the short distance from the dorm to the venue, providing the natives a rare sight of three Kurta clad individuals walking. Rare because I guess it has unfortunately become de riguer for people to use vehicles even for short distances, especially if you are affluent moreso for a marriage. Yes I am a part time Tree hugger.

We met up with many of our friends from Bangalore at the Venue. This was the first Konkani wedding I was attending. The ceremonial dresses were quite unique. Ceremonies and rituals differ in different cultures and communities. This was another unique one. Anirudh was trying to compete with the official photographer and was doing a good job too actually. One mention – the Casio camera which he was using is very impressive. My friend, the bride’s, brother was running around to managing the event, which was flawless, reminded me of the duties I would have to do when my Brother will be getting married. Better start going to the gym :D . Best wishes to the lucky couple.

It was Saturday Afternoon. Now what? We have to do something. All the resorts were full because of school vacations. The archeological ruins at Badami, Aihole, Pattadkallu circle were off season. For a good reason. It was summer, in interior Karnataka near the Maharashtra border. It was blazing hot. It would be nuts for anyone to roam around in that heat. Lets go.

We went around Dharwad looking for anymeans to go to Badami, but as it turns out Dharwad is a little bit too laid back to have people at the ticket counters to even guide us. We took the next option of going to Hubli and trying for a way to get to Badami. Hats off to KK who ignored my whining to stay back in a hotel in Hubli and Dharwad and waste precious time. Hubli is the bigger of twin city to Dharwad. It was a big lucky break that we caught the only bus to Badami – the glorious Rani Channama Private Bus service, I will call it the RCPBS cause we will need it again later. Now RCPBS can give the airplanes a run for their money. They have Two screens and a DVD player! Plus the bus actually flies, low. Our host started the Kannada movie ‘Rama Shama Bhama’. This I truly enjoyed. I had seen the Hindi version –‘ Biwi No.1’ which was a murder of the movie. I didn’t notice the maniacal way the pilot/driver reached the destination in good time. My recommendation, catch the film, worth 2.5 hours. Oh Garcon, the champagne please….

It was dark by the time we reached Badami. We made our way to the closest decent hotel – Rajsangam which seemed to host a lot of foreign tourists during peak season. We bargained a decent 600 Rupees for a 3 bed room. Had a simple dinner of masala dosas and crashed. We would need all the energy we could for tomorrow.



The rates for Taxis, as usual of Tourist places, were too prohibitive for our budget. The rickshaws offer a far better deal. Airy and comfortable for the three of us, the whole tour for 350 rupees, the rickshaw was a super deal. 350! You say, the rates start at 600 for the record. An important advice for everyone at this place at this time of the year, stay hydrated. To do so we had to down almost 4 litres of water, a couple of cold drinks and 4 coconuts. Trust me its way better than sunstroke at this place.

First stop were the Badami caves. Just a few minutes from the town, these four temple caves were built by the Chalukyas in various centuries. The approach towards the cave complex, if you notice, is uphill a path bordered by huts. If you see closely is a proper path with way stones probably for a ceremonial route in the ancient times. We skipped getting a guide who would charge a flat 200 rupees for the gyaan which I was sure to forget in 5 days. The caves were as far as I can guess a Monolithic structure. The cave temples were for different deities. Vishnu and Shaivaite temples were the dominant ones, but surprisingly the last temple was a Jain or a Buddhist temple, that’s why you need a guide. The temples were made in different centuries by the Chalukyas. It is impressive that a kingdom can last for so long, so much so that there was even a shift in the faith of the people. We were really impressed by the carvings. They were incredibly detailed, beautiful and more importantly flawless. These were no idols or individual sculptures that you could replace if you goofed up while making them; they were part of the monolithic structure. The cave complex had a superbly built tank, rather a lake next to it. It was easily the size of a 50 Olympic swimming pools. Credit goes to the Archeological Survey of India for doing a good job here. In a day’s journey from Bangalore, I was standing in another century altogether.

Watch out for monkeys at the place, if you are not careful they will swipe your food primarily or your digicam if they are bored with the ones they had swiped before. Monkeys are OK, it’s the humans that consistently make me angry. Do you have to have a picnic at such a beautiful Archeological place? Gangs of picnickers desecrate the place with bottles and leftovers, at all the places we went to that day. Sometimes I feel these places should have stayed hidden in dirt because we don’t deserve to see their beauty.

Badami caves were a great appetizer for the main course coming up. Next stop Banshankari temple. As we were to see, this day we were going to set personal records in number temples seen in a day. This is a revered Devi temple, with people coming here from all over the nation. For sale were the crispy tough bhakri rotis and their accompaniments – chutney and curd. Mind you, if you skip the curd you will end up with a real bad stomach ache. We didn’t have the guts to try it.

Next up – Mahakoota. I have limited knowledge of this place, but if you are a Shiva devotee, you gotta come here at least once in your lifetime. I guess it has the largest number of Lingas in a single place. I can easily estimate more than 150 easily seen Lingas. There were replica or representative Lingas from all over India in small temples. There was a small tank at the centre with a small temple embedded inside enshrining a Linga. We were amazed at all the Lingas here. The number of Lingas was simply incredible.

We quickly moved to Aihole. The road to this place was almost alien. Dry, black and rocky, I am sure NASA can do some experiments around here. We reached the town of Aihole after quite a long drive. This was another temple complex from the Chalukya dynasty. These temple structures were Huge. They were beautifully stylized, and the construction was intricate. Its simply hard to not say how did they do it! You would definitely require modern construction techniques and the architecture acumen employed for this level of beauty would have been outstanding. I am sure if they updated Wikipedia back then, we would have made the Eiffel tower atleast 8 centuries early in stone. By this time fatigue had set in. The heat had taken its toll and we were hungry already. We had a forgettable lunch at the fabulous Mayura guest house, a government run tardy and inefficient facility, expected. We still had Patadakallu to go..

We were tired, despite the constant drinks, the heat had exhausted us. Patadkallu was still on the list. And it did not disappoint us. This was by far the best of all. The ruins here were big and beautiful. The temples were literally crammed in a small place. This place had a lot of variety in structures. The entire place was laid in stone and it seemed like a very important place of worship. Some of these structures were very spooky. A whole day of ancient temple watching was obviously monotonous but this place rocked! A definite must visit, I would recommend heading to this place before Aihole or Mahakoota. Patadkallu was a perfect ending for the tour.

We reached our room just after 4 PM. We had to get the bus to Hubli in time to make it for our train at night. We packed up and hurried out of the Hotel at 5, but we missed the Rani Channama Private Bus service (RCPBS). This was disheartening, frankly worrisome. Transportation wasn’t easy in these parts and there was the possibility of missing our train. We waited an hour for the next RCPBS, which was the same one we came in. The in flight movie, no prize for guessing, ‘Rama Shama Bhama’. This time we enjoyed it even more. The pilot got us into Hubli in good time. We headed straight for the Dharam Singh Line Bazar Shop to buy Dharwad peda. Sacrilege if you don’t get Dharawd peda if you visit Hubli-Dharwad. KK got a lot of that stuff. We had a simple Dinner at the Kamat’s. I would recommend some other place though. If anything the ‘Majgi’ saved the day for Kamat’s.

The train arrived 1.5 hours late, which got us into Bangalore 2.5 hours late on a Monday. A perfect start for another week of work. I wonder will I ever be able to see such work as done by the Chalukyas in my life time?

Not bad for my first decent article after my brief experience with RSI.

Battle of Bangalore: hunting for food. Intro

Battle of Bangalore: hunting for food. Intro.

Leaving Bombay was like leaving a Nice juicy, crunchy bhelpuri on the table after taking a bit and digging into a fresh plate of karela salad. Its healthy for me, I don’t like it but I have to eat it.

So as before, I explore new gastronomical frontiers with my roomies, let me remind you this blog isn’t a food blog, I write what I like to.

Let me start of by saying I hate Bangalore, for now. I am part Kannadiga so I am acquainted with Kannadiga food ( if that’s what it is called). And things are not Ok for a hog like me as I have to hunt. For food which is not the same as the last meal and which you might not get bored with within 3 cycles of iterations. For places where you don’t have to consume food like horses, standing up.For a place that is not run like a military canteen cause there is no other fodder station for miles to come . For a decent functional and affordable meal.

It dosent end with Dosa and idly, it starts with it. Best so far will be MTR which I haven’t tried but with all my techie brethen swearing by it, I can give it thumbs up.
But who has time to go and eat at all these fancy places when subsitence is the matter of hour. So you eat what you get. But all along in Bangalore you will discover gems of Dosa and Idly all along. Be it the canteen of the office or some small darshini you happen to try the accompanying chutney and sambhar are unqiue and interesting. Northies and I personally like the dry chutney which they put in the parcels, be sure to get it when you eat there also. But these occasions are rare where you are delighted by the food. Far and Few. So eat the next as it might be your first.

Gobi Manchurian. How these natives like it. How the Chinese might consider this a blasphemy. These spheres of nutritionally deficient califlowers tortured with vinegar, sauces and heaps of MSG potentially cancerous, how good they are! Best place to eat, my auntys place. Commercially I can say so far I have had it best at SLV swadishta, Banshankari. Banashakari by the way is my stomping ground for my adventures. Look out for Gobi manchurian with gravy, it can just make this dish or break it completely. NOT RECCOMENDED FOR PEOPLE WITH BAD THROATS, STOMACHS, INTESTINES….

Good North indian food, dosent come cheap here. If it comes so tell my dear flatmate who happens to be such a harried Northie affected by acute deficiency of good northie food. Already angered by lack of the national language, the final straw was the ‘north indian’ meals. This is Chinese food all over again. Local versions of North Indian fare are deluding the locals, or probably easing the transition I guess. Hey who am I to say. I am from the land of cocktail foods.

So run along to Shree Sagar(jayanagar 4th block). Our new found haven for Bombayya style Northie Food which my aforesaid Punjabi flatmate gave his thumbs up. Trust me that finger dosent come up as easily as one of its neighbours when it comes to food joints. Observe- food joints. Cause there usually are no chairs to sit and the consumption happens in a standing position, not this place. Thank you.
The roti, kulcha, naan run along the expensive side (Rs12+ !!) , but are well turned out. Sabzi, yes sir. Palak Paneer and Makhanwala are better than many of the ones I tried in Bombay. Priced similarly. Great Pulav. The service was quite mentionably fast and good. The Mushroom gets a 4.5/5! Schezwan rice sucks :( Gobi MC :( North indian meal :):):):) hehe, they had ice cream in that meal :). Its in Jayanagar :) , next to Cool joint :)

Cool joint, :) I cant stop doing that. This place definitely takes the ice cream cake. Screw Baskin robins 52 times over man! Great prices, great dishes , sandwiches, sundaes, shakes , juices. Thank god for this piece of holy land. You have to experience this place. Try amazing ice cream combos like Honey crunch, my darling, spider man…… innovative, very delightful and cheap(25+) !! what more. I want my salary paid this way. Womenfolk, you will love this place, men escorting the lady, this is your lucky cheap break.

Finally for this article, the one thing that made us happy, kept our energy and morale up, juices. Omnipotent. Omnipresent. Mega size, Mini price. Max satisfaction. Since I stepped into bangalore I have been drinking like a fish, purely non alcoholic in nature. Man, water is for washing, juice is for drinking! All the prices are low and juice is made fresh. The water so far has always been clean and best way to get vitamins awfully low in bachelor food that we eat. I always ask for mice without sugar and filter. Which makes the juice dude wonder, why bother drink a juice? Just eat a fruit and drink water. But I am too lazy for that. Highly reccomended, bangalore reads fresh good cheap juice for me.

Further I invite my friends who are fighting valiantly the battle to conquer new tastes and experiences in food land. Together we shall make this world a better place to eat :) forgive my pjs :P.