Restaurant Review - The Ants Cafe & Store

I always prefer Sunday mornings when I can wake up a little earlier than usual and without a hangover and I especially enjoy them when we can go out for some nice breakfast! The day seems so much longer to pack in a few activities and still have time to chill and relax. Last Sunday was one such when I woke up early (10.30 a.m. is early by my standards :P), quickly researched for a good breakfast joint and left with my husband in 30 mins for Ants Cafe.

The place is a house turned into a cafe and store tucked in on 14th Main off Indiranagar 100 ft road. Our phone GPS unfailingly guided us to Ants Cafe & Store which is hidden amidst some houses and a lot of trees. We had to wait for some 20-25 mins and the restaurant manager did a good job in managing customers and allocating tables. It wasn't a big deal whiling away time in the store on the ground floor of the building selling North Eastern (especially Assamese) handicraft. There were a variety of items from clothes and jewelry to accessories and decorative items. I also bought a wallet for my mom (the idea given by another Zomato reviewer of this place :P) !

After 20-25 mins we were called upstairs to the cafe. We were really impressed by the setting which is quite spacious and breezy. We were given a table next to a big window which was soothing to the eyes with a lot of greenery outside. It is a perfect place to hang out with friends or to spend a long lazy afternoon all alone with just your favorite book for company!

We ordered an English breakfast (which comes with coffee/ tea), an Italian omelette and a Darjeeling tea.The staff was good and my request of not adding onion to the Italian omelette was taken care of. The steward also came back to check if we got everything that we ordered. The food was tasty and sinfully "cheesy". I would have preferred buttered toasts but with all the cheese that was being consumed, I didn't mind the toasts without butter. The bill came to a decent Rs. 600 (including tips) for two.

I would love to go back to this place again and again because of everything that's on offer - the ambience, the food and the store below!

P.S. - My husband commented that with the kind of atmosphere Ants Cafe had, it should not have a "No smoking" restriction!

Restaurant review - Esplanade Kitchen and Bar, Indiranagar

Day before yesterday we went to Esplanade since my husband wanted to savour some authentic Bengali cuisine on his birthday. In Bangalore, it is difficult to decide on a Bengali restaurant because you are quite spoilt for choices. However it was easy for me since I had to try out a new place and it also had to be in Indiranagar.

Esplanade is conveniently located on 100 Ft Road in Indiranagar and there are multiple restaurants on different floors. This restaurant is on the first floor and the ambience is that of a beautiful Zamindar's house of Bengal. The old world charm is portrayed by the warm colorful lightings and lamps, the cozy wooden decor and the sketches of Kolkata of days gone-by. There was some nice instrumental music also of modern day Bengali songs. Though you might say that it does not suit the old Kolkata theme, it was a nice digression from the oh-so-commonly-heard instrumentals. The restaurant offers a variety of cuisines from Continental, Mughlai and Chinese to Bengali, and as the name suggests, it also serves liquor. But all of them (except the liquor :P) predominantly cater to the taste buds of Kolkatans. 

The waiters took orders promptly and served with a smiling face. We ordered some Luchi and Choto alur dom to start with. Then for the main course we ordered some steamed rice with Pabda Shorshe and finally ended with Bhetki Paturi. We did not order any sweet dish since I had already prepared Payesh for my husband at home. :) All the dishes made us happy and we were struggling to finish all of it because of the huge quantity. In fact, we were expecting one Pabda in one plate but were surprised to get two! We also packed some Posto bora, but it was not as good because of the meagre posto stuffing in it.

The food was very decently priced which came to Rs. 800 for the two of us. We have decided to make this our preferred choice for Bengali cuisine in Bangalore going forward!

Sun, sand and serenity

Our weekly trips had been given more than a month-long break after a number of cancelled plans and friends cancelling plans. Finally we decided to pack our bags for Pondicherry unheeding of who decided to accompany us. Pondicherry had been in my to-be-visited list for quite some time, and hence a significant part of the research was already done (courtesy Lonely planet, Tripadvisor and to some extent Wikitravels). However our last moment preparations did not give us much of a choice with hotels. We hired a Sumo, booked a hotel as a make-shift option if nothing else was available and off we were on the night of 21st October 2011. After picking up all seven of us, we could only head out of Bangalore a little past midnight. We went through Krishnagiri and took the NH-66 route which is very dark and bumpy and we engaged ourselves in narrating ghost stories which seemed the most apt thing to do. It took us close to 10 hours to cover a distance of less than 350 kms, with all our breaks on the way.

We reached Pondicherry at almost 10 in the morning. I was in awe of the beauty and tranquility of the place. The turquoise water, the silvery sand, the blue sky with white cottony clouds jutting out of it was absolutely soothing to the eyes in spite of the scorching sun. The number of shades of blue on offer was unbelievable! We checked into Asian Sea View  Guest House, just overlooking the sea. It was a small, no-frills hotel but for the location. It was on the Serenity Beach and the Promenade, at a stone’s throw distance from the Pondicherry Ashram, the boulevard and some of the well-known restaurants like Le Café, Le Club, Rendezvous. It was a two-storey hotel with a suite on the top floor and a terrace attached to it offering a panoramic view of the sun-kissed beach.

We dropped our luggage, freshened up in a haste and were off to Auroville or the ‘City of Dawn’. This place is closely associated with Shri Aurobindo and the Mother, built with the purpose of realizing human unity across the globe. The exhibition center, the cafeteria and the Matri Mandir or meditation hall have a charm of their own. The 1 km walk leading to the Matri Mandir with its red soil, the stalls selling bric-a-bracs, large shady, banyan trees and finally the golden globe (the Matri Mandir) is an experience in itself. We were not allowed to enter the meditation hall though, since a permission is required 2 days in advance to visiting it.

The heat, the walk and our starving tummies had left us exhausted by then. So we went back to our hotel to try what Pondicherry is famous for - food! Pondicherry is known as a ‘foodie’s fantasy’ with its wide variety of cuisines on offer from French to Italian, Chinese to Vietnamese, Punjabi to Bengali and as far as your imagination can run. We ate at Le Club near the Ashram, which served mouth-watering French fare. Then after revitalizing ourselves, we hit the beach straight. It is not a beach where you can take bath, with all the boulders and a rough, raging sea, but that does the trick of keeping the water sparkling blue. We stood there for a while taking in the sound, smell and sight of the sea while looking at a breathtaking sunset. We took a walk along the 1.5 kms stretch of the Promenade with its clean roads, palm trees and bordered by cozy French buildings on one side and the sea on the other. As it grew darker, there was a plethora of activities among tourists from spending a relaxed evening with family, to skating, shopping at the stalls along the beach or lazing around at one of the nice little restaurant or café. We had some snacks at Le Café and went to the famous Rendezvous for dinner. The night was slow and relaxing. Sitting on our terrace we had a few drinks letting the feel of Pondicherry set in.

With all the drinks the previous night, I was unfortunately not able to get up early in the morning to watch the sunrise. It was a lazy morning, with us having breakfast at Le Café and cycling along the sleepy lanes and turns of  the Promenade. We checked out of the hotel at noon and headed for the Sunday Market or Grand Bazaar at the cutting point of Jawaharlal Nehru street and M.G. road. There is a Hidesign seconds shop there where you can find some really cool bags at throw away prices. After we were done with our shopping, we went to Chunnambar Beach for a boat cruise. The boat took us through the backwaters from Chunnambar to Paradise Beach. The view was mesmerizing with clear water, glimpses of flying fish, coconut trees on both sides and a French-manor kind of building in the far end. Paradise beach was perfect for taking a bath in the sea. And what is a travel to a coastal area if you can’t take bath in the sea? So we changed into our beach clothes and made a straight dive into the water. It was an amazing experience with a rainbow on one side, the dark clouds approaching us and the waves crashing on the beach. Then it started raining and we were totally thrilled fighting with the waves and the rain. Finally after having a bad lunch at Paradise beach, we took the last ferry back to Chunnambar Beach at 5.30 p.m. After reaching Chunnambar Beach, we started our journey back to Bangalore.

Bidding adieu to Pondicherry was not easy. Pondicherry has a life of its own which is so unique to any of the other beaches in India. The laid back lifestyle, the French influence, the pristine beaches, the slumberous by-lanes tell a story of its own which is so involving, it makes you fall in love with the place. Of all the places I have travelled, no other place made me feel so strongly that I would want to stay back at the place for a few more days.

Book review - Palace of Illusions

Recently I laid my hands on the novel ‘Palace of Illusions’ by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Not having read the Mahabharata before, on which it is based on, I was apprehensive about reading this book. But once I started reading, it was very difficult to put down. It narrates the great epic Mahabharata in Draupadi’s voice, whom Divakaruni prefers to call Panchali. The novel traces Panchali’s life, beginning with her magical birth in fire as the daughter of a king before following her spirited balancing act as a woman with five husbands who have been cheated out of their father’s kingdom. Panchali is swept into their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at the brothers’ sides through years of exile and a terrible civil war. Meanwhile, we never lose sight of her stratagems to take over control of her household from her mother-in-law, her complicated friendship with the enigmatic Krishna, or her secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husband’s most dangerous enemy. Panchali is a fiery female voice in a world of warriors, gods, and ever-manipulating hands of fate.

By looking at the Mahabharata from a feminist perspective, Divakaruni has given the epic a new dimension altogether. The characters have been very well etched out which makes the reader enter into a personal relationship with the characters where you hate some and you empathize with some. The myriad of relationships, their complexities, the love and hatred, power and passion, respect and revenge has been effectively captured in this work of fiction. In short, it is “a lyrical tale imbued with the scent of ancient incense yet rooted in modern day relevancy.”

My first blog

I am starting my blog today, not because I have a lot to write or share but because someone asked me to. I don’t know whether he will ever read my blog or whether I will ever be able to tell him about it. But I still thought it would be a good idea to start writing. That would make life a little more worthwhile, doing something substantive, something more than just slogging five days a week and waiting for the weekend to come. In spite of that I have a happy life. Touch wood. I am a HAPPY SOUL, you see!

I do not crib, I do not complain, I do not cry. At least not in front of most people! But does that make life rewarding enough? Not really. Life should be more than just doing the work you are required to, coming back home, ‘facebook’ing, and then sleeping at 3 in the night. It’s a fast life. I wake up late, hurry, rush to office and try to finish my work in the last minute. One and a half years into the corporate world, maybe I am still not able to get out of my campus life! But now I want to do a lot more. I want to read, I want to watch movies, I want to travel, I want to learn something new. And I want to write, describing all this!

Before finishing, I would like to thank the friend who had asked me to start writing. This is one thing, if not anything else, for which I would want to keep thanking him, because I don’t want to stop this blog. I don’t want to stop writing!