Jaipur Trip Final - Back to B'lore, head in the clouds ...

This is the final piece in this series that I wrote on the road, so to speak. Have to sit down sometime and complete all the other missing blog entries about the whole trip. Thats a resolution.

March 29th, 2009 2:34 p.m.

So I'm headed back to B'lore, plane's cruising at 37000 .... and I decided I should start completing - well, starting to write rather - all those blog entries I intended to write, about my whole Jaipur trip. Didn't have a chance at all to blog while i was in Jaipur. Two reasons - one, I wasn't online at all - the hotel I was in was as far from being connected 24/7 as is possible. So I didn't open the laptop too much either - second, I didn't have the laptop much with me anyway, even when I was free to blog. Had been commandeered to prepare all the usual song n dance performances that are usual in weddings in the family. Or I was just strolling around the corridor wondering where to sit. Anyway, there was too much going on to be able to just sit n ruminate and draft.
Thought I'd blog on the bus ride from Jaipur to Delhi. But I forgot completely to charge the laptop. Or the phone. End result - I spent the whole bus journey just sitting doing nothing. Couldn't listen to songs, couldn't do anything else on either device, and worst of all, couldn't even click any pics.

The window seat in a plane is the best place to blog from though. You can sit n reflect while the sunshine streams in through the window, look out at the clouds and ... ruminate ... thats a good word. Very clear day today and i can see the ground even from this height. Not too much cloud cover. Damn, I wish I could click a pic of all these cloud formations...
I realised I have a lot to cover but lets see how much blogging i can do once I get home. Unlike here in the plane, there are no windows with sunlight streaming in in my flat. Makes a difference in disposition methinks. Plus I'll probably be nose to the grindstone in work.
One good thing about this whole trip - was able to almost stick to my diet and get in some exercise as well in between, something I usually don't manage even on weekends.

Btw, as usual, I'm in the same row as the 2 most burly members in the cabin I think.  I sometimes wonder whether this is fate or ... whatever ... maybe ...
I feel so lazy right now I might almost fall asleep .... zzzzzz .... :) space out .... cheerio ...

Now all I have to do is backtrack and write all those other entries. Easier said than done. Hopefully should have some time on the weekend, the week's almost over .... and I have to get my laptop formatted tomorrow at all costs, don't know when that will be back up.

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Jaipur Trip 3 - Quick update

Continued from here and here.
This post is quite redundant now, since I have to blog about the whole time in Jaipur anyway, but since I haven't written anything new since getting back, and I did write this at that time, I figure what the hell ...

Jaipur - March 26th, 2009, 6.05 p.m.

Haven't been able to do any blogging, haven't blogged about the first day here, or about all the things that happened today. One reason being I haven't had the laptop with me much. Chandni had the laptop most the time. Chandni 'n Ruchi needed the laptop to practice dance moves for the engagement ... don think they were able to fix on any songs though ... major reason being, I don't have any dance nos. on my laptop, I don't listen to dance music...
Also, haven't been able to even open either of the books I brought to read. There's just been too much going on and too much to do .... all the usual confusion :)
gotta go now ... have to leave at 6.30 to go to the engagement, and still have to get ready and do some other things before then ....
Took some nice pics, should be worth uploading them sometime ... whenever I get the chance ..
Edit : I did upload two of those pics already, and will upload the rest appropriately.

To be continued

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Jaipur Trip II - In Transit ...

This is second in a series of posts I wrote on my recent trip to Jaipur, started here. This one was written almost wholly on the flight. While editing this on Flock, I noticed some formatting issues cropping up. So had to copy-paste and then publish this. I can't imagine why I felt it was necessary to include this little detail.

In the air - March 25th, 2009

Some unspecified time later (since I obviously still don't have a watch and had to switch the phone out) : Huh?? How long was I asleep? The captain is announcing that we'll be landing in 40 mins. and the seat belt sign is on now .... Me fell asleep finally on take-off ...

Sign never went out ...air pockets all the way or something ... Looks like a short hop to Mumbai ... why the heck is this flight 4 hrs. long?
Mebbe I should start on the blog post now? Doesn't seem worth the effort, the plane will be landing by the time laptop even boots up.

Mumbai

A short while post 11.00 a.m. according to the pilot : Huh, landing was smooth, and the view was nice ... hills and water bodies (unlike Blore's rather monotonous landscape near the airport) .. nothing notable though and I remember Mumbai looking a lot more stellar from the air.

Which brings us to the present i.e. around 11.30 a.m., same date : Wrote the previous post and the first half of this one. On Flock. Using that for the first time to write a blog post. Not too bad. Have considered moving social media activities to Flock in the past, but I'm just too entrenched using Firefox. And already use 3 separate browsers simultaneously to do 3 separate things, plus Opera for torrents. Mebbe I should install Safari as well, and then find a new category of browsing activities to do in that ... :) decisions, decision ... :P
In the air, once more

Sometime later, as usual no exact idea (Should I start wearing a watch?) : In case I needed one, another reason to remind me that Mumbai just looks majestic from the air. View while taking-off was stellar, especially over the seashore. Methinks I need to travel more though, and take in more sights to gain a more balanced perspective ... :)
Wish I could have taken some aerial pics, but phone was off and would have taken too much time to start, and wouldn't have done much good anyhow, 'coz the lens is just not that good. Plus I'm somewhat conscious about powering up the phone in mid-air even when in offline mode.
I did manage to click this photo though.


Not sure, but I've realised that I blog best when I'm like a fish out of water, bumbling along here and there, fully alert, noting all the little details. Like on vacation. Even inconsequentials can be easily dredged for some small observation at such times. 'Course the reason could be that my normal everyday life is so boooring :) .... I mean, how many times can I crib about the long cab ride home from office? But that apart, I can be far more relaxed on vacation time and gain the time and that certain detached perspective that most facilitates blogging.

On to Jaipur now, will be landing in a short while. Lets see how much detachment I get there, among all the standard wedding confusions :) Looking fwd to meeting up with everyone though. Haven't seen some family members in a long, long time.

Will blog more in case I can :)

Edit : Apparently the pilot on this leg can't speak proper English. First time I've ever heard a commercial pilot speak like that. Usually those foreigners speak in a pakka firang accent. Refreshing change :)

Edit 2 : What was also a change, albeit not refreshing, was that he was quite as un-proficient at landing the plane. He couldn't hold the plane steady while losing altitude and the whole thing very much resembled a roller-coaster ride (I HATE roller-coaster rides). I almost contracted motion-sickness at one point. Somehow we landed safely without too much of a bump, whereupon I realized I had been holding my breath.

To top all that off, when I came out he terminal and went to the pre-paid taxi stand, the dude at the counter told me the cab would cost 330 bucks. I did a mental double take and had to re-check with him. And then had to hear that the distance was 13 km., and the cost was 330/- Oh well .... I didn't want to take the bus ....

To be continued

Jaipur Trip I - The long road to Up, Up and Away!!! ...

I was on a short vacation last week to Jaipur to attend a wedding, so I thought I'd take the chance to start blogging again by covering the whole trip on the blog. I wrote down several posts on the run and intend to publish them as I edit them. Still have to write the parts actually in Jaipur.

This first installment, covers the trip outta B'lore and here's the sordid/boring tale so far, kinda in self-speak (so please excuse all the blasphemy ... )

Bangalore - March 25th, 2009

2 a.m. : Damn, must finish packing ... but damn am I sleepy .... mebbe I should finish packing in the morning? ... HAHAHA ... oh I also have to copy those movies in the morning that Chandni wanted to watch ... hope I have the time ....

3 a.m. : FINALLY, finished packin .... to sleep, to sleep ... zzzzzz .....

6 a.m. : WHAT IN BLAZES is that sound?? Ohh .. that's the phone alarm ... WHY is the damn phone alarm ringing like that??
Ohh, that's right ... I have to wake ... catch a flight ... WHY is the damn airport so far? Would have left the house at 8.30 - 9.00 to catch a flight in the HAL airport, were that still operating .... OK, I'll get up in a mo' ... I'm sooo tired .. mebbe I'll lie here a min ..........
NOO, GET UP, GET UP!!! else I'll miss the flight!!
OK, UP!!! Damn, I don't even get up this early in normal office days ... :(
Allrite, whats on the agenda? Oh yeah have to have those damn sprouts I boiled last night.
Well I can't finish 'em so I suppose the rest will have to be thrown out since Amit definitely won't eat sprouts) along with all the more-than-half leftover boiled chicken that I didn't have time to eat.

6.40 a.m. : OH crap, no time to copy those movies or ANY movies now ... What will I do to pass time now :( I think I'll sulk about his the next 2 hrs. now as I head to the airport.

7.45 - 8.00 a.m. : OK, on to the sulking .... Damn, I'm so sleepy .. :( Why couldn't I have caught the 8.00 bus? I could have slept one more hr. then ... boohoo .... :(

8.30 a.m. : Dammit I reached at 8.30, and the flight is at goddamn 10 a.m. WHY couldn't I have taken the next bus and reached at 9.30? At the most I'd have to rush .... well lets check-in and then find a place to sit n sleep hopefully .... or should I sit under the sun in the outside cafe and have a bite to eat and drink? Hmm ... wish I could stomach that, but damn, I am tooo tired ... :( Mebbe I should eat inside once I check-in at the slightly more expensive cafe inside ... definitely not in the significantly more expensive cafe upstairs past the security check ....

Ohh ... my head :( ... and stomach :( ... definitely no eating at all ....

8.40 a.m. : Have to pay the stupid UDF ... there are people here who don't know what the UDF is and some who apparently can't read the BIG signs in BOLD letters either which state the amount out IN BOLD ... 260 bucks ... what a rip-off ... hope I'll get a chance to state out loud a line I've rehearsed, "What a scam!!" Ahh, here's a gent ... Hmm ... I've forgotten as I write this what he said, but I got a chance to tell him, "Scam!!!" with an added shake of the head ...

Sometime later (I have no idea when 'coz I don have a watch and I don't remember anyhow ) : I'm hungry now, lets see what i can get to eat that won't require me to sell off something ....
Hmm ..... why is it that Lassi here is significantly more expensive than a can of diet coke? I think I'll utter a cynical mirthless laugh about how we've driven ourselves to blind consumerism in some sorta effort to ape western culture ....
Why the heck is the Barista inside so expensive anyway? I always thought the reason Barista charged so much for coffee was that you could just lounge around on comfy sofas .... but there's nothing like that here .... the coffee definitely isn't worth that much ....
On the other hand, dosa doesn't cost like 150 bucks outside either ....

15 mins. to 10.00 a.m. : What do i do now? Flight looks to be late about 10-15 mins. Boarding's at 10.05 now. Maybe I should call someone and crib about somethin or the other, probably how tired I am. I know, I'll call Raj and crib about how I could have caught the 8 a.m. bus and got in a extra hour's sleep, reached at 9.30, and still somehow managed to board the flight on time.

5 mins. later : Call done. Oops, phone battery looks to be starting to run low, should have charged the phone while I was lounging around the boarding gate ... Do I have time now? Looks like this puts paid to those plans of listening to music while falling asleep on the plane.
Do I even have time to transfer music from the laptop? Lets try ... I'll also start that post I've been meaning to blog ....

5 more mins. later : Damn, there's the boarding call ... no time now ... lemme take a min. to crib ... "this laptop is so slow and takes so much time to boot ..."

On to the boarding gate ....
To be continued here


P.S. I managed to click this image on B'lore airport (I think; I'm not sure..) so uploading this here for want of a better image...

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And yet another one ....

this is me i swear ... :D

Back to thinking ... back to blogging??

There's a point here somewhere ... that I'm trying to make .... wish I knew quite what that was ... on the other hand, all 4 fingers (and thumb) are pointed squarely at me as well ....

Disclaimer : Calvin 'n Hobbes is the property of Bill Watterson, etc. etc.

Dekho Baarish ho rahi hai........It's raining, it's raining, it's raining...................

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains............
The rain in Bangalore, by contrast, stays mainly on the roads...............
Where else could it go? For some really intelligent reason, Bangalore roads are laid down in a different manner from roads all over the world. Instead of sloping down to the shoulder, so all the water flows away from the road, they slope to the center. Result : You step into office in the morning, and in the evening when you step out, the city has disappeared, submerged beneath the rivers and lakes that have sprung up after an hour of rainfall. And this is a phenomena only people in Bangalore can understand.

Mumbai? Heck. Mumbai needs the whole goddamned Arabian Sea plus torrential rainfall to submerge it. It takes Bangalore only a few hours of continuous rainfall (and even that is not incessantly heavy, but varies in intensity) to go from Garden City to Swamp City. No competition at all.

Now ordinarily, I like rain a lot. Comfortably enconsed in my flat or the office, with no power outages, and with no reason to go out, I even wait for it. I love listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops, watching them fall (specially against a glass window, with Self comfortably enconsed inside in perfectly dry conditions), while sipping a hot cup of coffee/tea. Even love feeling a bit of that wet spray on my face (and a bit is the operative term here).

Real life alas, is not that hunky-dory. So at some point you have to step outside.

Obviously that happened to me today. I had to go to corporate office at 7 for a meeting. At 6 the rain promptly started and kept up. Resisting my teammates' offer to play NFS, I stepped out and waited for a while for the rain to stop (which I cordially dislike. Just standing there like an idiot,waiting for it to end, which obviously never happens when you're actually waiting for it to happen). Not wanting to be late, which is something I take very seriously and not wanting to miss the meeting, I took a chance and rode out into the (i thought) abating rain(actually it was just the above-mentioned impatience I have with rain-ending-waiting. Going back in again to wait seemed like such a drag). O, how we mortals play tricks with ourselves....

As soon as I got out on the road I realized that Koramangala valley had reverted to its pristine state, which is that of a natural reservoir. Anyhow, I somehow swam to CO on my bike (a distance of 1 km.) and arrived totally drenched from the water of Koramangala lake (n the lake was really crowded with traffic as usual), and the water from the heavens, and managed to attend the meeting while dripping on the various tissues I surrounded myself with to catch the water.

Afterward, I hung out in office waiting for the incessant downpour to end. Then I figured what the heck, I'm already drenched so I might as well swim the rest of the way home through Madiwala lake (also reverted to its original pristine glory). Having the foresight to borrow a jacket, I bravely set out in the now thankfully abated rain.

Well I tried to anyway. Unfortunately, when the rain stops, the aquatic animals move in. Madiwala lake was jam-packed with vehicles floating home. So I tried to act smart, and popped into one of the handy bylanes of Madiwala, trying to take a traffic free route home (all roads lead to BTM :D ).

Just as an aside, I really love Bangalore. I love the politeness and civic sense that people here have. What I don't get is where they lose their traffic sense as soon as it starts drizzling. At the first T-junction in that single-laned alleyway, a mini van stood squat in the center like a King, unable to go anywhere because of the loyal subjects surrounding it. Effectively, it was stopping traffic on all sides from going anywhere. No doubt the driver had some twisted logic for doing it, but why the bleep would you take a goddamned mini van inside a single-laned alley? And man, were there a lot of loyal subjects hailing it. It looked like everyone in BTM had had the same smart-aleck idea I had. Anyhow, after about 10 mins. I manged to overcome that particulr hurdle and somehow sloshed my way home through Madiwala swamp. Whereupon I launched into this diatribe.

Now, just a thought. After Nov. 2005, when Blore made national news for being the first metro in the world to get submerged after just 3 days of incessant drizzle, and drizzle is the operative word here, everyone assumed the infratructure improvements made since then would be more than sufficient to withstand any amount of rainfall.

Oh, how wrong we were. While it has been raining regularly for the last 3 days, it took just today, when it really rained for a couple of hours, to wash away all our misconceptions along with Bangalore's roads.

Just one last parting shot. If instead of raining just half the year, Bangalore received even light rain all the year round, how long would it take to go from Garden City to Submerged City of Dwarka?

P.S. I often wish I had a cameraphone 'coz photos really liven up a post, but never have I more missed it than today. Oh, the scenic shots of Koramangala swamp, Madiwala lake, and Hosur road river that I missed.

KK ROCKS!!
This just-passed Saturday I got the chance to attend a KK show (you know, the singer) in SAP Labs Bangalore courtesy my cousin who works there (it was family day so he invited me along, and I was obviously only glad to accept), and man, was it great.
I've never attended any kind of live performance before so mebbe that was a factor, but KK really rocked. He sang, he danced, he jived and bounced across stage, and he had the audience in thrall. Everytime it seemed he'd sung the last song and you started gettin that 'OH NO' feeling, he bounced right back with another number. He seemed to have these amazing stores of never-ending energy and he just kinda went on and on, belting out song after song. His band (lead guitar, bass guitar, drums n synth) were great (they've been together for 10 years acc. to him) and they perfectly complimented each other. Unfortunately I don't recall any of their names now so thats 1 black mark against me 'coz they were awesome.
The show began around 6 p.m. and we found some place to kick back comfortably on the grassy slope a bit away from the stage since the whole area near the stage was already crowded. What we didn't anticipate was that as soon as KK and band walked in everyone stood up and blocked our vision. Not only that, but they kept standing for the remainder of the evening as long as KK was on stage (till after 9). Oh well. That is the only way to enjoy a show. Fortunately there were some pretty large screens on the side so you could see everything transpiring on stage.
Mebbe its just some bias I have but it strikes me that KK is one of the few mainstream Indian singers who actually manage to pull off the guy-next-door-turned-rock-star look as compared to say, Sonu Nigam (who is still an amazing singer btw) or Himesh Reshammiya, whom I personally find impossible to listen to, and like only as music director (just listen to the songs he's composed for other singers, why does he single himself out for the worst treatment?). I guess it helps that his earliest hits were numbers like "Pal" which immediately struck a chord of resonance among the youth. He definitely has an amazing silken voice, but its also the casual jeans-tees-long hair look, and amazing stage presence. No doubt about it, he's a definite crowd-pleaser, and appears to actually enjoy the audience interaction.
During the first half of his performance, KK sang all of his chartbusters from recent movies, from "Woh Lamhe" and all the rest of them. Apologies if I can't remember most of the songs, but I didn't even know he'd sung all those numbers. He really rocked the audience, and the only problem was that we were sitting too far back to actually appreciate the audience spirit. After that, he took a short break.
Then he came back, and (like the MC promised) he actually raised the performance to a whole different level. Out came the pensive "Tadap Tadap Ke" and the ever-favorite "Pal", at which point we got up and moved forward to stand near the stage and actually start enjoying the show. And then he seemed to go on and on tirelessly. (I already said that didn't I?)
The fact was that I got tired singing and chanting along with the audience, but KK crooned on.
He ended with a bunch of songs not originally sung by him, and finally performed "Summer of '69" just when it seemed the show was over (he claimed it was an old favourite he performed in every performance back in college) and then ended with "Koi Kahe" (DCH). On the way, he managed to exchange a lot of friendly banter with the audience, give out CD's of his tracks, AND conduct the lucky draw along with the M.C.
So I'll say it once more, KK is a real rock star.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera along (actually I don't even own a camera at all ) and so have no photos to post along with this post :( Some googling enabled me to find the attached photo, which is not from yesterday's show, but is almost exactly the setup that was present on Saturday evening. The stage was a bit more to the right maybe, and there were a hell of a lot more people. A word for the SAP campus - its really nice, with the large spread out lawn.
The photo is courtesy flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/slomoman/441851289/in/set-72157600040116305/
If i get any photos from my cousin I'll definitely post those here.

Note : I can't belive I got through a whole post without once being negative or vague. Well,except for the dig at HR :) Seriously, nothing personal, some people like his singing and some don't. I just happen to lie in the latter category.

List of pretentiously over-priced restaurants in Bangalore I

Some time back (last week, mebbe?) I went to Zaika (in Raheja Arcade,Koramangala) for dinner with Amit (that's my roommate). Why exactly we went there is another long story which I won't go into now, but since we couldn't really figure out where else to go for a light dinner, I thought, "what the heck,lets check it out". Plus I'd heard they served Mexican fare, which I've been wanting to try out for some time now. (I don't think I've ever had Mexican food, and now that includes the stuff I had in Zaika)

Anyway, while on the way there we started a discussion about what I considered to be pretentiously over-rated eating joints in Bangalore (Ok, I started the discussion in my characteristically negative,sarcastic,critical, blah blah..... manner).
The upshot of it all was that I was inspired to start my own restaurant review series on this blog, something I've been considering doin for some time now. (After all, I figured, I should occasionally post somethin that actually makes some sense.) Plus, I think I eat out sufficiently often to be able to offer my 2 cents' worth on this kind of subject. The only problem was, I really have trouble writin anythin, well....sensible. But the dinner in Zaika solved all that. And I got the idea to post reviews which actually factored in my rather less than rosy-eyed view of the world, instead of bypassing it.

I would write a series of posts about all the eating joints I didn't like in Bangalore, specially the ones which I considered highly over-rated and pretentious.

And I would begin with Zaika, the place which inspired me to start this whole thing. And I would do it the very next day. That was important, 'coz I had rattled off a list of aforemetioned pretentious eating joints to Amit over dinner and didn't want to forget all of 'em.

Today, (after a week I think?) I finally got down to doing it. Amit not being at home, I decided to hijack and commandeer his computer for some time, for the purposes of composing this post. Of course, the list is far gone from my mind by now. What the heck, I figured, I'll just introduce this series and proceed to rip Zaika to shreds. By the way I'm not very sure if it was Zaika or Zaiqa.

Anyways, Zaika ( I googled for the correct spelling and it seems to have got some good reviews online, heaven knows how) is situated in Raheja Arcade like I mentioned before, and is done up not too badly. There's sort of what we took to be a mini-waiting area as you enter, with a glass chessboard for people who, I assume, want to spend the time in a nice,sporty intellectual pursuit while they wait for a table. Heaven knows who those people are. Not the ones who spend the waiting time playing chess (though I suppose those are rare enough), but those who wait for a table in Zaika at all (Lots of better eating-out options in Koramangala). Even those who think bout a nice game of chess would just about get a chance to set up the board since the place was definitely empty that day. Anyways mebbe I'm just biased concerning that whole chess board thing,it was probably just there for show.

That apart, ambience was quite nice. Nice clean, roomy place, done up in pastel shades n all. There was also an upstairs section which we didn't check out, mebbe it was even nicer. The menus and table mats loudly proclaimed "Zaika - fine dining" or somethin like that. Well, that it definitely wasn't. It was the sort of place that tries to serve everything under the sun and the stars on its menu, but then somehow forgets the crucially important detail of employing a cook who can actually rustle up all that fare, and falls back on just relying on a couple of good dishes that the regulars (if there are any of those in Zaika) order everytime while studiously avoiding everything else. Obviously you don't order some exotic dish in an Empire or an Imperial.

Sadly, we were not regulars (and are not bound to become so in the foreseeable future). Perhaps we just ordered wrong. Or mebbe we were just foolhardy and adventurous in the matter of menus which, lets admit it, we often are. Anyways, since I wanted to have something light, and I felt like having some nice spicy Mexican fare (I remember mentioning that he claimed to serve Mexican food in the ad) we ordered a couple of Mexican dishes. (Btw I have this impression that Mexican food is spicy. If I'm wrong, please do correct me). Or we tried to anyway. He only had 3 Mexican dishes, and one wasn't available, so I ordered one of the remaining 2, and Amit ordered the other one, Enchiladas (I think). (I'm too lazy to google for the specific names)

I don't remember what mine was called but it was essentially 3 pieces of something like tasteless fried momos with some veggie stuff within that was essentially tasteless. And I don't mean the taste was bad, it just wasn't there. Oh wait, I could taste the tomato ketchup.
That was it.
Then Amit's glop arrived and I felt lucky.

Now, (to digress a bit) I may or may not have mentioned somewhere that Amit is essentially an optimistic creature while I am essentially negative (and so, of course, superior). However, he does have a very nice sense of critical sarcasm which, when it exhibits itself, usually far outweighs my own run-of-the-mill sarcasm. I say this just to make clear that a lot of the critical stuff in this post actually came from our combined points of view.

And no, although I do remember some of the stuff he said about his food, I won't relate any of it here, lest I lose my devoted audience who fervently believes that I am the king of negative sarcasm. Lets just say he was brave enough to finish off his whole dish, a surprising feat in itself.

Oh, we also ordered a couple of herbal iced teas, which looked just like normal iced tea does (with more ice than tea,that is), but for the fact that the drinks menu (yes,this was in a separate drinks n dessert menu, will wonders never cease? But more of that in a bit...) stated that it was herbal iced tea. How can a menu which proudly proclaims "fine dining" possibly be wrong? Oh wait, there was also a slice of lemon (very thin) spliced (don't know the exact word) on the rim of the glass. I stand corrected.
Speaking of which (not that we were) the waiter brought the straws sepearately, Heaven knows why.

And now, to the above-mentioned drinks menu. There were 2 types of drinks, those on the main menu, and those on the drinks' menu. In a place which doesn't serve alcohol, Go Figure. There were some mocktails listed, and some ice cream flavors, (which could easily have been on the main menu) so perhaps that was the reason. No idea why there were drinks listed in the main menu as well though. Perhaps some well-intentioned logic that escapes me.

That's about it I guess. (My memory's not as good as it used to be, perhaps there was more).
The bill for our rather lavish feast was a moderate 286 bucks. And that pushed me over the edge. Rs. 300/- for 2 iced teas,3 momos, and a dish of bad-tasting glop? "What kinda pretentiously over-priced place is this?" I exclaimed. Which is where this whole post, and ultimately this series of posts emerged of course. And so I resolved to strike back the only way I could, by posting this on my blog, since Zaika doesnt give you a feedback form (lots of places don't actually. What do I want, 5-star treatment?)

I know most people who read this might think, "what kinda cheapo guy is this? Goes out for dinner in Raheja Arcade and can't shell out 300 bucks?" Which is exactly my point. When you open a joint like this, please at least take care to serve eatable fare to customers. I've happily paid double and triple this amount in various places, when I came away satisfied. (ok, mebbe I'm exaggeratin bout happily shellin' out the dough).

Mebbe it was just a bad day. Mebbe, like I said before, we just ordered the wrong thing in the wrong place. This is a multi-cuisine place, in case I forgot to mention before. Right before we left I saw someone I assumed to be the owner happily eating some regular North-Indian fare so I'm sure it was probably better. Mebbe I just have a permanently jaundiced view of the world (I probably do) and consider it my celestial right to crib loudly, since google is givin away all this free server space for Blogger users. But that still doesn't detract from the fact that I moved this place up to No. 2 in my list of pretentious eating-out joints in Bangalore. I still can't remember the first one.

So thats it, my over-critical review of Zaika. Oh, almost forgot,this is a strict veggie place so if u really enjoy ur kebabs n biryani, pls dont head out there.
And definitely don't call me if you're planning to give a treat in that place.

Next up in this series, a diatribe against the only other restaurant on my list that I recall right now. Remember I metioned that I moved Zaika up to No. 2? Well this is that displaced joint, now at No.3. It will take considerably more time and effort, 'coz I actually need some concrete material for that one. Its a regular Bangalore favourite by the name of.........(wait for it)..........Queens (What?? Am I off my rocker?)

No seriously, I really put it at No.3 on my list of pretentiously over-priced restaurants in Bangalore. I'll say why later. (So Zaika really shouldn't complain, its in exalted company).
Until next time......................