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. :).

Squirrel Antics for you :)

Check out this link for some more details :) -
http://oooligans.blogspot.com/

Foodie weekend!!

Well! This is turning out to be a real foodie blog, but I just can't seem to help it! :) Here's something that I tried over the last long weekend. Since it was August 15th, and we didn't want to venture out, so the only interesting thing left for me to do was try out some new recipes. Also, there was this huge basket of aloos which I (health)consciously avoided for the past two weeks. I needed to use them up before they sprouted in front of my eyes :P. Since now it was decided it was going to be Aloo, there would be no compromise on the amount of oil either!!! Aloo roast it was going to be. Yumm! Here's a simple recipe which I first heard from my sister in law. But remember, you need to be patient while the aloos get the right amount of roast.

Boil potatoes. Heat oil in a kadhai (put in 2 teaspoons to start with), let some mustard splutter. Add some chana dal and turmeric powder. After chana dal gets a slightly brownish tinge, add the boiled and cubed potatoes into the Kadhai and spread them in the kadhai. Mix one teaspoon each of besan, red chilli powder and rice flour (and also salt as per your taste), separately in a cup. Spread this mixture evenly over the aloos in the kadhai. Pour oil over the aloos, so that they absorb the above mixture. Cover the kadhai and let the aloos roast. After sometime, flip over the aloos and let the other side cook. Here's how they look finally!

Malleswaram station and Raghavendra Stores!

The above place in Bangalore was revealed to me when a relative was admitted in the Manipal Northside hospital two weeks back. And boy! what a revelation! :)

Just opposite to the hospital is this heavenly eat out called Raghavendra Stores. A modest little place, where these guys prefer only handling the orders for a very limited tiffin menu, ofcourse apart from the piping hot tea and coffee. (After all, what's tiffin without some traditional cutting to go along?). Though options maybe limited, this does not deter the huge crowds that come trooping along to dig into the dishes here.

THE item TO GO FOR here is the Bangalore special, solpa khaara, solpa sweet - CHOWCHOW baath. The combination of khaarabaath and kesari is just awesome. Gulp it down with the traditional tumbler of coffee, what more can you ask for! If sweet is not something of your preference, have the khaarabath with a crispy vadai, mmmmmm! I'll leave the imagination to you. The idly vada, chutney sambar combination gets quite a few takers too.

A sight to see here is the number of people flocking into this little eatout, in their Innovas and Corollas, getting huge casseroles and plastic covers, filling them up with khaarabaath and vadais and what ever else they fancy. We also have relatives from the hospital smuggling some of the delicacies and taking it to their loved ones. :D. What is the use of being admitted in Northside, when you don't experience Raghavendra stores!

FOOD!

MMMMMMM!!!! :) It's that time of the year when I am only thinking of food, cooking new dishes and something to keep munching on! (If you are wondering why, I myself am at a loss for reason. Probably the rains?) When it happens though, I am on an all time high. So there ... let's enjoy it while it lasts.

Mad Tea Party absolutely makes you mad with the mouth watering recipes and even more delicious pictures of them. Don't believe me? Go take a look then!
Khandvi and Cabbage pakoras are what I tried out from there. I took a few pictures of my own dishes from my own kitchen, when they were ready to be gulped down, and here's how they looked.

A few more trials and I think I should be able to perfect on these. The curd I used for the khandvi had turned a little sour. I would have liked it better if it hadn't. The pakoras were good. Again, Iwas a little impatient here and made huge ones, instead of the dainty ones shown on Mad Tea Party :). Size didn't matter to me :D, hunger did!! :D.

Thiruvannamalai – June 14th - 15th 2008

TVM – Thiruvannamalai!
A2B – Adyar Ananda Bhavan!

This weekend was a sudden trip to Thiruvannamalai. Hubby dearest having read a lot about this place, had to visit this place and was looking for the right time to do that. So after getting some quick details from cousins and friends about the routes, hotels, et al, on Friday night, we decided to leave the next morning, stay one night and return by Sunday evening. The stay part was just so that it wasn’t too much of a strain. But finally it did prove to be a good decision, as we covered more places than we would have in one day.

Saturday – 8:15 am – We left Bangalore and reached Hosur, from where we proceeded towards Krishnagiri. Taking the Tirupattur – Thiruvannamalai route, as, though this route is about 10 km more than the Krishnagiri – TVM route, the road however, is better than the heavily potholed Krishnagiri-TVM route. So, after a stop at the way side A2B restaurant and filling petrol, and another refreshing stop at a tender coconut stall, where we ended up picking some mangoes and guavas as well, we reached the Ashram of Ramana Maharshi at around 1:15 pm. On checking if we could stay there, we got a negative response, since pre-booking was necessary to stay.

We then proceeded to Hotel Trishul (Found this on the internet and it was rated highest). Pretty decent I must say. Having dumped our bags here, and after some lunch and a much needed siesta, we left to visit the famous ashrams. The first stop was “Sheshadri ashram” (Ramana maharishi was his disciple). It was a pretty little place in a perfect rustic setting. It had a small meditation room and lots of peace and quiet! Then the next stop was Ramana maharishi ashram. Compared to the previous one, this was bigger, with more people, a temple, and lots of peacocks flying and screeching their throats out! There were also tons of our ancestors monkeying around J. The specialty here was that there was a pathway leading to the Virupaksha caves in the middle of the TVM, and also to the Skandashram nearby. While proceeding towards the caves, we can see quaint little rocks covered by clothes hung on wooden lines, which provide as a shelter for the aspiring sanyasis.

It was 6:30 pm by the time we left the ashram and proceeded towards the Arunachaleswarar temple. This temple is at the base of the TVM. It is a huge temple with at least 9 gopurams. The main deity here is Lord Shiva and his consort Amman (Abithakuchamba). There was a place from where all the 9 gopurams could be sighted, and there was also a model of the temple made which showed us the locations of every point within the temple. After visiting the two deities, we had our dinner at Hotel Ramakrishna, and then scooted back to the Trishul and slept early (the India Pakistan finals was on, and India was on the way to a defeat, so there was no point staying awake for that match!).

Sunday – 7:00 am –
After some coffee and a refreshing bath, we walked back to the Arunachaleswarar temple. This time we entered through the main entrance (there are four entrances). Lord Murugan’s deity was installed immediately at the entrance. That was where Lord Murugan appeared before Arunagirinathar Swamigal – who composed Thiruppugazh in praise of Lord Murugan. After paying due respects to the lord, we again proceeded to the Shivan deity, which was at the other end of the premises. On the way, there were a lot of other smaller deities and also a huge water body, not to forget the Elephant which blessed us when we gave it some small gift. We visited the Pathalalingam – which is the lingam placed lower than the ground level. We need to climb down a few steps to see this deity.

After the visits to the 4 deities, we had some good breakfast and awesome coffee at hotel Arunachala, just behind the temple. Though the temple was beautiful and well maintained, I can also not forget to mention the sad state of affairs around the temple. The dirt, slums and beggars was really heart rending to watch, and makes one wonder if there really was more that could be done to maintain the place.

We then checked out of Trishul at around 10:30 am, and asked our way around to find the Girivalam. Girivalam is a 15km pathway around the TVM hill. It has 108 lingams en route. We can either walk around, or even drive around. Due to lack of time, we drove around the pathway. The views of the hill were breathtaking from here. Sanyasis also were aplenty along the route. On completion of the Girivalam trip, we proceeded towards Bangalore.

I almost missed mentioning the fresh vegetables and flowers (at pretty cheap rates) that we bought at the market place of thiruvannamalai before leaving. One must surely not miss out on buying these!

On the way back – we took another sudden 18 km diversion towards Saathanur Dam. With pretty little villages and excited farmers posing for pictures on the way, we reached the dam and spent an hour looking around the lush green garden and checking out the dam engineering! So it was 12 pm by the time we left the dam and proceeded towards Bangalore. Another half an hour stop at the Hosur market for some Rice, and it was 4:30 pm by the time we reached home sweet home in Bangalore! Not bad at all!

Home sweet home!

Back at home and having a good time :) .. doing what though? Nothing but idling away my time!! :) Doing all the things that I used to consciously avoid all these days. Little things, but of great importance, I am sure you would agree - :)

Getting up, but not before 8 am!, reading a book as soon as I get up from the bed, not bothering to clean up the table - knowing well it needs some good amount of re-arranging and dusting ... aaaah.. heaven!!! How good it feels to just laze around, and not having to worry about it!!

:) Enjoy it while it lasts, is what I tell myself... Though it does feel nice to be doing (or, not doing?) such things, with the sudden burst of energy I get after lazing around, I can't seem to stand all the mess which I knowingly tolerated all this while!!! :D. So lazing once in a while is a good thing after all I suppose...

Awesome win at T20!!!!

What a match that was last night!!! Awesome, thrilling, fantabulous and what ever words you can think of! The Indian's for once, did not lose focus and proved their might. :) And am I happy or what! The entire country was cheering for the 10 players on the field, and the Indian team, I should say FOR ONCE again, did not let us down.

Watching the match on the terrace canteen (terabyte as we call it endearingly) of our office, all the folks were almost competing against each other as to who could cheer the loudest and most! Every run scored, and every wicket taken was followed by the loudest cheer and the highest jumps one could ever witness. And what a high we were all on - unbelievable. When this was the case with about 100 people watching the match, imagine what the entire nation cheering put together would have sounded like!

A thought crossed through my mind as to what if the players were able to hear the entire country's cheers for them. Whew! Way to go India. And keep up the attitude and spirit in all your matches. Play to enjoy the game, and dont get bogged down by the pressure of all the Indian's on your back. Though, I must admit, we do get over the top most of the times, but its because we love you and the game. And we will always do - whether you win or otherwise.

Marriage, Mexican fried rice, et al

Well now - hello all - I am back and yes - with a bang! :) Having been given the tag Mrs. to my name, experimenting with various aspects of my life, cooking being one of the most important of them!!!! Amidst all the confusion and excitement of setting up our new house, my sister in law and me busied ourselves in trying out various new dishes, with hubby dearest being the unsuspecting victim.
One of these culinary attempts of ours dished out something we termed as Mexican Fried Rice! And I must say - it turned out pretty well!
We started by tossing in 3 chopped tomatoes, a few green chillies and some cilantro into the mixer. In a pan, add some oil and let a teaspoon of mustard sputter. Add finely chopped onions and saute till they turn golden brown. Pour the smoothly blended paste of tomatoes into the pan.
Now for the best part - the veggies that go in. American sweet corn, chopped red and yellow bellpeppers, some green peas if you please - all these go into the tomato paste. Add salt to this mixture and While it cooks, pressure cook rice with lesser water than usual, so that you get non-sticky consistency. Once the mixture and rice are done in their own separate ways, mix both of them - and voila! there is your lip smacking mexican fried rice. :) :)

Quick peek

In the midst of all the madness these days at home ... :) ... I must mention a pleasant and enjoyable madness though ... Popped in for a quick peek into my favourite place :) on a special day ... Here's wishing all the visitors a HAPPY VALENTINES DAY.
It will be a while before I blog again. Signing off on a happy note.. See you all soon.