The best Tomato Soup ever

Noodles and company... Another foodie joint in the States, with a nice concept. They have various kinds of soups and pastas catering to different palettes - Mediterranean, Asian, American to name a few. I have been to this place thrice now, but the one thing that swept me off my feet there, was the awesome (awesome) tomato bisque (soup) that they served. It was completely out of this world. Take my word for it!!! I have never ever tasted soup like that anywhere in my life!!! The thickest, creamiest, tangiest, yummiest soup ever! Would love to go once again to N&C just to have more of this soup.

Hats off to perims

It was wonderful to read the article about our dear Shyamala periamma. :) It is nice to see that her talent was recognized and written about so well. The Mambalam house has always been a constant hubbub of activity, with one or the other guest coming in from every part of the world, staying over, chatting away and relaxing on the famous "balcony" of the house. As a family, we used to keep teasing her that come what may, she will never fore-go her music classes, and even if hell broke loose, she would be teaching her students sincerely in the "vaasal-room" of their Mambalam house. And her patience and smile is a taken-for-granted fact!

Hats off to Shyam perims. We love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quick new trial.

Before leaving the hotel room for my next visit, I wanted to try out some new recipe. And the recipe had to be simple. I was too lazy to carry out a major process of buying stuff, grinding, marinating, mixing, waiting and what not. As I browsed for recipes, I found one that fit my requirements exactly in a blog that I follow - http://savithrispot.blogspot.com/2007/07/ravenous-for-rosti.html

I like potatoes in any form. And potatoes combined with cheese had to be good! :). So I tried this recipe, with a slight variation of adding pepper instead of red chilli powder (just because I had lots of pepper powder to be used up!). And wasn't it yummy! Here's a pic of how it looked while cooking!!!

Looooooooong weekend

Starting from the eve of the long weekend, we were in the holiday mood... Friday evening saw us entertain 3 bachelor friends for dinner, with (I surprised myself by the number of preparations, so am taking the liberty to brag about it!!!) onion pakodas and potato bajjis as starters, main course had sepankizhangu roast, red cabbage morkuzhambu (yes!!), lime rice and semiya upma!!! White rice and curd to go along, and the bachelor friends got the dal which they prepared too. Phew! The best part of the dinner was that the guys enjoyed every bit of it, proof being the empty vessels (though after a month of eating sandwiches and packed and re-heated food, anything edible and home cooked would have been a hit)...

Saturday morning, we had to be in the "rush" mode, and were on the roads by 9:15 am... four couples with kids, heading towards Olson Lake beach .. It was a bright and beautiful day and the drive was amazing with the scenery which never ceases to surprise me. Everything around here is just picture perfect. Pretty looking houses around a small lake, with flowering plants surrounding them, a narrow river, with sparkling clear water, flowing across the road while we pass on a bridge above it, a winding road with trees looming right over us (the entmoot kind of trees!), and the quaint little post boxes at the foot of every second tree, which make us peep through the dense trees to actually find houses sitting right in between this forest-like setup!!!! I could just go on!

The day at the beach was fun, with splashing around in the water, lazing on the sand, lunch packed from subway (my first bite of subway sandwiches turned out to be a good experience with some tangy Chipotle sauce added in it) football on the grass, boating with the life jackets for all of us including the kids, (they looked so cute in it) and then heading back to a friends place where we exchanged stories and laughs way into the late hours of night with some yummy dinner (ordered this time from a nearby Indian restaurant)

After all this, Sunday morning had to be a relaxing one.. so we were up only by 9. We decided that today would be "catering to our tummy's with home food" day! Masala dosas and chutney it was for breakfast. By the time we had it, it was more like brunch. So we  finished brunch by 12:30 pm... with a hot cup of ginger tea...(or should I be more specific and say chai, after the experiences here with using the misnomer "tea", but actually meaning tea with milk and sugar!!!). So sunday was pretty relaxing, with just a walk outside with the little one, and a stop at metro mart for some water. Evening was Palak rice and raita time. This was a new recipe that I tried out, and it turned out really well!

Monday was shopping day. Being the July 4th weekend, lots of stuff was on sale. So we visited quite a few shops and managed to get a good amount of gifts to take back for family in India. We decided to put an end to our gift shopping as on today!! :) Barnes and Noble was one wonderful bookstore that we visited. Recommended by friends and family alike, we had to look for ourselves what this shop offered. It was massive, and had a huge collection of books. The little one just loved the little train set that they had put up for kids to play. We would have liked to spend more time there, but for our growling tummies. So I just had time for the kids section, and picked a few books for kutti. Lunch was a quick snack at home and then after a nap, we headed out again for a nice long walk. We returned to try out an Indo Thai restaurant very near to our hotel room. Some good food later, got back to our room to get ready for our next day at home!!

Tuesday was mostly uneventful too. We spent most of the day at home and went for a long walk again in the evening. The long walks that we do takes us through such a beautiful localilty, that we just continue to walk for hours together, until we realize that out feet are tired and we need to get back! But yes, the four days were well spent, both fun and relaxing, just like every weekend here is turning out to be!

Bridging gaps

One of the engineering wonders that I was taken to in San Fransisco was the Golden Gate Bridge. Since the climate around this time of the year through out the US of A is warm or even hot in most places, I decided against carrying warm clothes. I did take a jacket, though, for my son (thankfully) cos I was soon to experience the strong winds at the view point around the bridge, which almost threw as off our feet!!

It was a beautiful bridge constructed right across the strait. It had a pathway for people who wanted to walk across the bridge and there was a path for bikers too. We however decided to drive through the bridge, as we wanted to cover a few more places. At the time we visited, a huge container vessel that passed by below the bridge made for a picture perfect scene.

Picture Courtesy: K chitappa!

Some interesting facts that I learnt about the bridge are -

**The color of the bridge was painted an International Orange. The name of the bridge, though, did not come from its color. It is the bridge across the Golden Gate Strait that is the entrance to the SFO Bay from the Pacific Ocean. Hence the name - Golden Gate Bridge.

**Eleven men were killed during the construction of the bridge, and that was actually a safety record of that time. The expected fatality was more than 30!

Tons of other facts about the bridge are available online and make for an interesting read. :)

Sweet Tomatoes.

One of the eatouts that we went to in SFO this weekend really impressed me with its concept. It is called Sweet tomatoes. Its a chain of restaurants within the US, though I just found out that the state I stay in does not have one :(.. Really did want to try out the lots of other stuff in their menu that I missed out...

As soon as you enter, you see the vast spread of the buffet before your eyes. (Vegetarians also have a huge choice). Starting with a variety of salads, cut vegetables, it goes on to have baked potatoes, pastas, soups (the variety was so huge that there were 3 kinds of soups for vegetarians, and around 5 or 6 kinds for non-veg lovers), macaroni and cheese, various types foccacia (which I learnt was a sort of pizza), baked beans .. this is just probably half of what they had to offer. To top it all, they had different kinds of desserts, what with muffins, brownies, cakes, icecreams, toppings for ice creams, seems like a never ending list. With all of the items available, you can mix and match them according to your taste.

You can check out the menu here - Sweet Tomatoes

Once you get in, you first pick up a tray and go along a line to pick stuff that you like. Try not to pick everything that catches your eye this trip itself, cos you will have tons of things on the other side to try out later after you pay and finish your first round. At the end of that line you have the counter where you pay for yourself and get a bill. Then find a place to sit and enjoy your meal, and go back how many ever times that you want, to the buffet, and pick what ever else that you need. Another tip is, try not to order any drinks, as that adds up quite a bit to the bill. This place have drinking water available for free in dispensers, which is another rare thing I guess here around the US, as we need to buy soda or coke at most of the places as they dont serve water.

Well, the size of the buffet does explain the width of the people here too! There is no stopping you, and you need to have a conscious watch on what you are eating and how much you are eating. But it is a place to definitely visit if you are touring the US. Also if you are in a hurry and want to grab some quick meal, this is the place to be in. No wait times, and the food is ready for you to start on it as soon as you get there.

Journey so far ....

It's been a week now that we are in the US of A. Quite a few experiences to speak for during the travel ... interesting learnings.

The Bangalore airport checkin, immigration, security and waiting was all the usual stuff. In Lufthansa, the staff on board were pleasant, and we got a bassinet for the little one almost immediately upon take off. A comfortable journey and the food was just about right, as I was able to even choose a few things in the menu to feed the little one (I wasn't carrying anything other than biscuits for him).

The mid-way stop was at Frankfurt, and the airport, with its various duty free shops, and a lot of "eccalators" for my kid to walk to and fro on, made it a happy experience. Exhausting though, as my son wanted to keep me busy by making me walk/run behind him, where ever he went for the four and a half hours of wait... He even woke up two ladies sleeping on the lunge chairs! He made amazing conversation with them with his limited (tanglish) vocabulary, and they understood and enjoyed every bit of it!

Then, we got on board UA, to cover the next journey which was going to be 9 hours long. No bassinet this time. Food - hmm - nothing much to speak of, especially for the kid. The staff on board, nothing much to speak of either... or probably, we could speak about how there was no trace of "being pleasant" in them, to the extent of being unpleasant. My husband still says he found nothing wrong in that, and that's the normal caustic humor(!!?) displayed by people around here. I haven't still been able to agree with him on that front, as other people that I spoke to around were always ready with a "hi how are you" and with a smile on their faces. Hmm.. so there, 9 hours of bad food, bad humor, bad back later, we landed at ORD, and waited with fingers crossed for the immi officer to call us. After a few tense moments, which made us a lot wiser, we cleared and got the  stamping (phew).

Out we came, only to be held back by the baggage clearance guys, who informed us that we have been held back for a "Special Survey" (oh please give me a break!!). But thank our stars, they did nothing much but scan the baggage, and we were let go (yippee ... scott free finally .. was the feeling!). We boarded our go air (airport cab) and headed to MKE.

Sonny gave an initial resistance to sitting in the car seat with an "amma madeela okkachikanum" plea... but well, what could we do? Coaxed him into "indha oorlai no amma madi". Thankfully for us he is a pretty coaxable kid :) .. and so finally reached room sweet room... all set to explore the new place!

Eating out at MKE

The first day of eating out at Milwaukee, or rather, the States, was at a Mexican restaurant. I had what was called a Veggie burrito. It turned out to be a huge maida chapati filled with some rice, vegetables, a green sauce, sour curd (they had a variety of options to pick and choose from, and this was what I chose) . After the meal, I decided that the Mexican I have had in Pune was a lot yummier than what these guys offered, though there is no arguing as to which is the authentic Mexican! :)

The fun part of the eating out was a visit to Kopps, an ice cream joint. They specialized only in custard and cream and not ice cream, though it all tasted the same to me!!! I had a chocolate sundae with nuts and a huge cherry as toppings. It was on the same lines as hot chocolate fudge at apna Corner house... (a small difference though ... at apna CH, you can ask for extra nut toppings for free, while here you had to pay extra for the first helping of nuts too !!!)

Grilled paneer with veggies

Here's another recipe that we tried out (from the LG cook book again!) and I think is worth a mention. This was more like a starter, but we ate it as an accompaniment to piping hot chapatis, and what a hit it turned out to be!

The grilled paneer with vegetables needed some 200 grams of cubed paneer, green (and if you want to add to the colors - red and yellow capsicum), onions, tomatoes. Cut all of the veggies into big pieces.

For marinating the vegetables and paneer, grind some mint leaves, coriander leaves, green chillies and garlic together into a paste. To this paste, squeeze in some lemon and one tablespoon of hung curd. Take a microwave safe glass bowl, put in the vegetables and paneer into it, and add the mint mixture into the vegetables. Sprinkle some turmeric, red chilli powder and garam masala powder and a teaspoon of butter. Make sure all of the vegetables are mixed well together with the mint paste.

Refrigerate this for about 30 minutes and grill it in a microwave till slightly golden brown on all sides. This might take around 20 minutes. Try it to believe the taste!! The mint and lemon flavour gives a wonderful flavour and you will absolutely love it!

Jeera fried rice with Tangy Potato fingers

So here goes... am back in Pune for sometime, and raring to go on the microwave cooking front. I have my niece with me for a few days, who is sure to appreciate my culinary attempts (irrespective of the final output!!).

So the countdown begins. We started the first day with an interesting recipe we found in the cook book which came along with our microwave. This turned out to be a decent accompaniment for Jeera rice.

As the name indicates, we peeled and cut the potatoes into french fry like fingers and microwaved them for 6 minutes. While the potatoes were kept aside to cool, we prepared the ingredients for the gravy. It required one chopped spring onion, chopped green chillies (as per your taste), 7 flakes of garlic (chopped again). Heat some butter in a microwave safe bowl for one minute, then add the above chopped stuff into it and heat it for 2 minutes. Toss the potatoes into this mixture, add a ladle of tomato sauce, one (or even two if you like it to be more soya saucy) ladle of soya sauce and one ladle of vinegar. Take a small cup, and put two heaped teaspoons of cornflour into it. Pour half a cup of water and mix the cornflour well. Pour this mixture into the potatoes. Add some pepper and salt to taste and toss them well together. Microwave the above mixture for 4 minutes and allow to stand in that heat until your jeera rice is ready!

The jeera rice was a simple one. We fried mustard, jeera and cashewnuts (till golden brown), added onions and sauted till transparent. In went some washed frozen peas and then the basmati rice (which was kept soaked in water for half an hour). Add some water (we used a proportion of 1:1 for rice and water), and allow to pressure cook until one whistle. Simmer for 5 minutes and then allow to stand.

Oh yes.. I forgot the salt! Before pressure cooking the rice, add salt to taste.

There you go - you now have a tangy flavoured potato fingers, to go along with the simple jeera rice.

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!!