Another petite outlet - UK Foods

It was lunch time at office. One of our team members suddenly decided to go out for lunch and asked if we would join him. He said he knew of this place which sold hot jolada rottis. So we thought of giving it a try.

Uttara karnataka food stores sits pretty in one of the cross roads of Bangalore's Jayanagar 9th Block. It is a small store (adding to the number of other famous small eat outs at Bangalore) selling many of Karnataka's famous eatables, which include snacks, various rice mixes, sweets etc. The store also caters to the hungry noon crowd by dishing out hot chapatis, jolada rottis, varieties of rice like puliyogare, etc.

Picture - Courtesy Sangameshwar

The food is easy on the palate and tastes absolutely home made. I also got some kodubale (a rice flour snack) and kaai obbat (pancake made of coconut and jaggery) for home, and they were really tasty.

On the downside, we need to stand and eat. However, that can be compromised for the nice food. Importantly the place is not very expensive either. So it's really worth a try.

Nostalgia

Was back at Pune for a week. Just relaxed and chilled out for a change. And the best part of the trip was, met a lot of my friends this time.

Most of us having settled either out of Pune, and / or married and having kids, meeting up seems a remote possibility every time I go to Pune. To top it all, I work from home during my visits there. So workload and the little one take priority and I can never make myself go out to meet people.

This time was different though. J's wedding, Adu's birthday, Uncle's 70th birthday - all the three events were fun. The little one also got to meet a whole gang of people.

Meeting up with the college and school gang brought back memories, and also insights into each one of our lives, which are totally different from what it was before!!! Surprising how we are all so totally different from what we were 4 or 5 years ago.

Also, Pune roads are now much better than what they were those days. After the completion of all the fly overs, the city looks nice and clean too (atleast the areas that I visited). The window shopping at Store One and dinner at Mainland china with L and kids was great too! Totally left me feeling "I wish I could have stayed longer"... Pune, mom dad, family and friends - miss you guys!

Ghaati Subramanya Swamy (Oct 2009)

The little one was turning one on October 17th. The plan was made to go to Lord Subramanya Swamy temple on or around his birthday. So the date we chose was the 16th. The place chosen was Ghaati Subramanya Swamy Temple, Doddabellapur. The distance from Whitefield to the temple was around 72 Km.



Packing along stuff for the little one, we started on the journey by car at around 10 a.m. As soon as we hit the roads, G dozed off. We took the budhigere road towards devanahalli airport. When we hit Devanahalli village, we then joined the road going towards doddabellapur. After crossing doddabellapur, there are signposts directing you towards the temple.

The diety in the temple was the highlight. It is a seven headed serpent, the front of which is depicted as Lord Muruga and on the back rests Lakshmi Narasimhar. There is a mirror kept in such a way that we can see the Lakshmi Narasimhar on the behind. The significance of each of the serpents is also explained in the walls around the temple. The various little snapshots of Lord Muruga and his conversations with Lord Shiva and Parvati are painted all around, giving an insight into their lives.

The temple has an anna daanam program which feeds 100s of people on a daily basis. One of the methods they do this is with the fixed or recurring deposit scheme, in which they put the donations that they get from people, and the interests obtained from that is used for the anna daana programs.

Overall, the visit to the temple was very satisfying. The journey to and fro was pretty comfortable, save for some bad roads. The villages that we passed through provided for some scenic beauty. :) And over and above, little G also enjoyed the journey, and the darshan, which happened on the eve of his first birthday.

Tiruvannamalai after a year (Jul 2009)

Tiruvannamalai is considered as one of the Pancha Bhoota Sthalams, associated with the element - Fire - the others being Kanchipuram, Tiruvaanaikkaval, Kalahasti and Chidambaram. The visit this time was with a lot more knowledge about the temple and its history, which made the trip and the darshan even more beautiful. Tiruvannamalai is the temple of Lord Shiva, where he is worshipped in the form of a lingam.

As soon as we enter the temple through the main entrance, we see the Murugan sannidhi to the left. The Patala Lingam sannidhi which is seen a little ahead to your right, is where Ramana Maharishi is supposed to have gone into a deep state of meditation. The main sanctum sanctorum has the Arunachaleswarar in the form of a lingam. When we sit inside the enclosure to see the Lord, we can actually feel the heat to such a great extent. The Agni Lingam is actually felt here, and you have to be there to experience it. When come out of the sanctorum, we are sweating from the heat, while it actually is not so hot just outside.

Unnamulaiyaal or Abithakuchambal is the Lord's consort. Before we either visit the Lord or his consort, we have to declare our presence to the attendance keeper of the Lord, who is Sri Chandikeshwarar. Since Sri Chandikeshwarar cannot see, we have to click our fingers twice in order for him to hear our presence.

This time, four of us, along with my 9 month old son made the trip. It took 4 and a half hours from Bangalore, even with some stops in between for food and also to pacify my restless little one at times. The relatives who travelled along with us walked the Girivalam stretch surrounding the Tiruvannamalai. This pathway is the home for many Sanyasis. This walk lasted around 3 and a half hours. Since they started pretty early in the morning, the walk was enjoyable with a strong breeze blowing, egging them on. Only a 2-3 km stretch which was within the little town turned out to be tough, what with all the pollution and noise.

Hotel Trishul again this time was our place of stay, and I must say once again that the stay was good at the hotel, though we skipped having food there. A lot of other vegetarian options were available in and around the place, so we opted for those.

Kalahasti and Tirupathi

This trip to Tirupathi was to shave of our little one's hair for the first time since he was born and offer it to the Lord. This is as per our tradition, that before we start to cut off the little one's hair, we need to shave it off completely for the first time within his age of one year. Else we would have to wait till he was three. At the rate G's hair was growing, and with the increasing heat, we didn't want to wait for three years! Hence the trip.

We hired an Innova (dual A/C) at a pretty decent rate of Rs. 8.50 per kilometer rate. Innova proved to be a comfortable choice to have been made for 6 of us including the little one. The distance from Whitefield to Tirupathi was estimated to be around 260 Km. Leaving home by around 10 am on Sunday, we took the Whitefield road, took a turn towards Hoskote and joined the Chennai - Kolar highway. We made good time and we reached Alamelumanga puram by 3 pm. The darshan and prasadam there took us about one hour.

From there, we left for Kalahasti, which was about 25 km from Alamelumanga puram. Kalahasti is famous for the Vayu Lingam temple. This beautiful temple has a Lingam which is surrounded by oil lamps. Interesting thing to observe here is that all of the oil lamps keep flickering due to the wind property of the lingam, except one, which is steady.

After this visit to Kalahasti, we returned to Tirupathi, stopped at Bhima's Residency for a refreshing cup of coffee and started on our trip to Tirumala. We had to first go through the security check posts before we started the climb. The ghat section was well lit up and the roadways for onward and return traffic was different. So it was a comfortable drive up to Tirumala. After having dinner and spending the night at the Ahobilam Mutt, we left at 6 am to the tonsuring center. The whole hair shaving procedure surprisingly went off smoothly, with the little one taking it pretty well! So back to the room for a bath, breakfast and then getting ready for the darshan. We reached the entrance by 8:30 am. They had a special queue, being Monday, for Mother's and kids less than a year old, and also for elderly people. Luckily we got into that queue which started moving by 9:45 am and we were out in half an hour's time after a wonderful darshan.

After some rest in the room, some pictures with G and his new look, we left back for Bangalore around 1 pm. The return journey had a lot of stops in between for snacks and walks for G to relax. Hence by the time we reached home sweet home, it was 8pm.

Bugle Rocks and VB!!

This weekend was brightened up by the green surroundings of the famous Bugle Rocks in Basavanagudi. Another favourite Bangalorean hangout, the rocky area with all the greenery is enjoyed by youngsters and elders, for their own different reasons. We could see kids happily sliding down the rocks and chasing each other, elders relaxing in the many cemented seats, the health freaks walking around in the park, and ofcourse, couples huddled together in various corners ;).

The Bugle Rocks has a history behind it. It was a watch tower in the kingly days. On spotting enemies, the soldiers used to ring the bugle and warn their counterparts to be ready for the oncoming danger.


After the relaxing time at bugle rocks, Vidyarthi Bhavan is the next stop. Famous for its masala dosas, especially the way the waiter balances 15 plates of masala dosas, the place is buzzing with activity. You need to wait atleast for 15 minutes before you can get a seat. But when you taste the masala dosa, you will agree that it is worth the wait. Drain it down with a cuppa piping hot coffee, and that for sure makes your day.

A drive to Nandi Hills

After a tiring whole week, we decided to do a little day trip to some place nearby. Nandi Hills was what first came to our mind. We had my cousin over for the weekend and also having heard so much about Nandi Hills, we thought, well why not?

We decided to start at 9:30 am. Uh Oh.. spoke a little too fast there. Breakfast was at home - parceled from the Kadambam restaurant in ITPL. By the time the three of us and the little one got ready and actually hit the road, it was noon. We took the road leading towards Saibaba Ashram in Whitefield (after crossing Whitefield station). At the nearest gas station, we filled up fuel, made sure the tyres were ready for the drive ahead and also picked up a few food and drink supplies. The Whitefield road finally hit one end of the Old Madras road. Taking a left there and traveling a little further down, a right took us towards Budhigere. The roads and the scenery here onwards is beautiful. Though pretty narrow and winding, the roads are laid well and are comparatively less used. Mostly the evenings find truck traffic. Else its pretty empty and a pleasant drive. Both sides of the roads were filled with red, yellow, violet flowering trees. We even found a nest in a small yellow leaved tree. Lots of stops for pictures and some villages later, we reached devanahalli village. From the village, we had to cross the airport ring road at a particular point and on the other side was the road which took us to Nandihills.

The hill at one point when you see it from below, is actually shaped like the Nandi. The entire drive through the ghats while crossing from one hill to the other, had decent roads. Just before the ghats and after crossing the airport ring road, a patch of the road was bumpy. The hairpin bends were really steep. There was just one road for both onward and return traffic. This did not bother us much since there was not much crowd that day.

At the ticketing counter, we could either park the car and walk down, or drive inside the gates too. The garden inside was maintained well, with lots of flowering trees and play areas for kids. There were monkeys all around, waiting to jump on an unsuspecting victim. They were ready to pounce on any tidbits discarded by the tourists. It was really cute to see the mother monkeys running around with their babies latching onto their tummies.We saw the Tipu Palace, and the Nandi temple. The thing about this temple which stood out was the natural stony flooring. The earthy feel was retained. The view from various look out points was really breathtaking. There was a neatly maintained KSTDC hotel atop the hill. Though the menu was limited, and service not upto our expectations, it just about catered to our hungry tummies.

However, the best part of the entire journey was the return trip. The same route was even more beautiful in the fading evening light. From one point we could see the devanahalli air strip. There is a lake nearby and we walked down to the edge of the lake from where the take offs were a treat to watch.


The day thus passed wonderfully. If you are looking for a nice little quick outing, nandi hills could well be an option.

(Psst... The Budhigere route that I spoke about earlier, also is a quicker way to reach the Devanahalli airport from Whitefield)

Brahmin's Coffee Bar

It's surprising how Bangalore still has these age old little foodie joints still going strong. The first little joint I was truly thrilled about was Raghavendra stores. This weekend, another one was waiting to grab my attention.

Brahmin's coffee bar. (What a simple yet eye-catching name!) This little bar is located in Shankara puram, and long long ago started as a small shop with just a table and a stove on the table, which would spew out hot idlies and vadas. This was THE joint for BMS college goers, who used to cycle down this path and were welcomed by the owner with a quick breakfast of idli, vada chutney and some piping hot coffee.



Brahmin's coffee bar is still a small shop (though the table and stove have migrated to an actual potti kadai with the stove inside), and some tables outside. The idly and vada with the chutney is simply awesome and, you know my fancy for kharabath by now ... yummmmmm.... Coffee.. well, the coffee was absolute heaven. The taste lingered in my mouth for the next half of the day. I couldn't make myself eat anything else, fearing it would spoil the taste of the coffee. (Until, ofcourse, the thought of a corner house hot chocolate fudge made me change my mind!!)

Brahmin's coffee bar ... Go for it!

Squirrel celebrating Tamizh Varsha pirappu

Happy new year little squirrel - he seems to enjoy the mango rice on Tamizh new year.

Whitefield in Spring 2009!!

Pune Mumbai Expressway

The Pune Mumbai Expressway is something which makes one really glad by its existence. The distance between Pune and Mumbai by road has decreased substantially, thanks to the Expressway. Also, the number of lanes allows travellers to avoid any traffic jams and go at their own speed, following lane discipline.

From Pune, we can reach the expressway through the Pune university road, which takes us over a bridge towards Wakad. Before we enter Wakad, one should take a left deviation which goes towards Hinjewadi. When we reach the flyover, instead of going over the bridge, take a right turn below the bridge. This is the road which finally joins the Expressway. After travelling a little further more, and passing the Indira Institute of Management, another deviation takes you to the Expressway.

On the way, there are some tunnels that you have to pass through, and they are worth more than a mention. They are beautifully lighted up and give a thrilling experience to the travellers.

The median throughout the journey on the expressway has beautifully tended flowering plants and greenery all through. These are being maintained through the year by constant watering and they are refreshing to the eye. Clear signboards all along the way indicate anything to be aware of, the approaching fuel stations and their distances, the approaching tunnels and toll booth distances.

Travellers encounter a small ghat section on the way, where the road narrows considerably, and the speeds also reduce to a great extent. Also, the roads, though neatly laid, lack the smoothness and are bumpy in a lot of areas where two concrete sections join, causing inconvenience to passengers sitting on top of the wheels!

What is a journey without a mention of the eateries. Before reaching the Expressway from Pune, we pass Soul Curry - a restaurant which is known for its South Indian meals. Also, each and every gas station we pass on the express way, is very neatly designed and has rest rooms and restaurants where we can re-fuel ourselves, along with our vehicles. :).