Decided to look back into my blog to figure out when I had last posted and let’s just say that it was a long long time ago!

So, am going to make a quick post to tell people that I am still alive and kicking; ok, not kicking…

The past month has been extremely busy with longer days and even longer nights. But, that’s work.

On the personal front, I finally got the chance to catch Inception. This time the theatre we caught it at the Cineworld theatre in O2 Arena.

The break was well enjoyed, though we spent a good time actually getting to the place! We got onto the DLR to head toward Greenwich, only to realise that we had to get to North Greenwich, which is on the Jubilee line. As expected, the Jubilee line was down, but we thought that we’d be able to get a bus to the O2, only to find out that one of the buses that goes to the O2 passes through Greenwich. So, we headed back to the DLR station and headed off to Greenwich. After a good deal of searching and an equal amount of walking, we found the bus stop and I enjoyed my first bus-ride in London.

The O2 arena has been built really well with a host of restaurants, the stadium, games areas, a roller-skating rink and of course, the movie theatre. We bought the tickets and settled in at Nando’s for food. This is one place I haven’t gotten fed up of the food.

The movie was spectacular. I don’t know when I will actually get down to writing a full fledged review of the movie, but the ending was excellent, though I did expect it. The best part of the entire movie was the concept. The special effects were good, especially the last 30 minutes or so.

The best part of the day was the return journey. Because the DLR was down, boat replacements were put in place from the O2 to East India, which we took full advantage of.

That’s one pic above from the London Calling album

Was at work today and this week promises to be as work filled as ever. So, am hoping to see if I can get a post across next week.

It was a really short visit about two weeks back, when I went to meet Akshat and Neha at the Cafe Coffee Day in Indiranagar.

Those who know me do not find it hard to imagine that I haven’t seen Bangalore even though I have been here for nearly 11 months.

I also realized that Indiranagar is not as far as I thought it to be! It’s about 7-8km from where I stay. But, it doesn’t take too long because of the wide open roads leading to the place. It has been a while since I cruised along so sweetly.

I’m still waiting to go out to Barista sometime soon. One day, when I am not that lazy!

Met up with Suchita today and we went to Fiorama, which is an Italian restaurant in Koramangala itself. The place turned out to have a good ambience, but unfortunately it was way to expensive for the portions and quality of food they had to offer. Reminds me of a non-veg Little Italy!

I also have clarity on the PayPal issue I cribbed about last time. Seems like the Reserve Bank of India woke up suddenly and asked PayPal to stop all operations in India until they “register” with RBI. This means that for at least another few months, Indian users will have a to suffer. Those who are freelancing and rely on PayPal as their main source of payment receipts are in for a major issue. I believe goods and services may still work, but that is left to be determined.

I don’t really blame PayPal on this, except for the total lack of communication before they took action, which is not acceptable for an organization like PayPal. Read PayPal’s update on the situation.

Lil white mouse heard of Mumbai Times Cafe, which opened a while back in Bandra, near KFC. So, we decided to check out the place for dinner.

Parking in that area can be a pain, but we were lucky to find a spot for my bike. Mumbai Times Cafe is located on the fifth floor of Crystal Shoppers Paradise which is diagonally opposite KFC in the same lane.

We were greeted the moment you step out of the elevator and led to a table for two in the “sand” section. I call it the sand section because sand covers the entire floor out there. You also have a tiny canoe there as well. The place is built with the idea of dinner by a beach, I guess. You won’t find one on the fifth floor though.

We ordered the Seafood Pulao, which is a mixture of clams (cockles), prawns and rice. It turned out to be a good deal spicy and this was washed down by mocktails and a margarita.

The quantity of the dish was really good for more than two persons and the service too was pretty good, which is always something I look forward to in a restaurant and sadly, there aren’t many that fulfill this.

The prices are on the steeper side, but then again that’s the case with most of the recent restaurants I’ve been frequenting

Anyway, I recommend this place if you’re looking for non-veg food, especially sea food.

We decided last night to go to Mezza9 for dinner, completely forgetting that the place would be crowded given it was Valentine’s day.

We were told about a 45 minute waiting time post 9.30pm and so decided to shift focus to St. Laurn.

Traveling to any place in Pune requires a vehicle and initially they were reluctant to send us a cab. But, eight persons is hard to say no to!

We were there post 10pm and after a bit of pondering we decided to just sit in the restaurant instead of the lounge bar.

Considering that the place was rather empty, we had excellent service. The prices were affordable considering it is a four-star hotel and we drew up a bill of under Rs.4000 in spite of dinner and drinks.

We spent a good amount of time there (nearly two hours), having starters and the main course. I must admit I ate well

We ordered the Reshmi Kebab, Malai Chicken Kebab, Hunan Chicken and Mutton Rogan Gosh. Don’t ask me what vegetarian dishes were!

We got the drop back to campus which was comfortable and convenient.

Today has been World Class Manufacturing day with one last assignment in that subject being completed. The submission is tomorrow.

Got a few blog posts to write today. So, stay tuned.

While making my last post, it completely slipped my mind about our visit to Appa Balwant Chowk in Pune to sell our MBA books. ABC is a well known place in Pune where you can pickup second hand books for MBA, engineering and other streams. There are several raddiwalas there who buy your old books and then resell them to eager buyers who can’t afford a brand new copy.

Hence, every year ABC sees a stream of students dropping in with their old books. We joined this list of students to sell the books we collected in the past 20 months. Any money is good money!

So, Aditya, Akshat, Sneha and me took the afternoon bus to the city. We were joined by Namrata, who had already sold her books the previous day. Got down and Atur Center and took rickshaws to get to ABC. The moment we alighted we were “received” by book sellers interested in purchasing the books. Boy, can they smell students interested in selling books from afar!

One thing I can’t do is bargain. But luckily for me Namrata and Akshat are the experts at this and Sneha and Aditya can provide decent backup! So, I stood with minimal talking while they bargained and sold all our books for a cool 3K. My share Rs. 600

Show me a college student with loose cash, and I’ll show you a student waiting to spend it!

Since we were free, we headed off to Dhole Patil Road which was a good Rs. 50/- by rickshaw to eat Katti roles, some pastries before realizing we just had nothing to do there!

So, it was back to Atur to catch the bus to Aundh, where we dropped in to Idlicious. We learnt to our surprise that they had stopped serving customers and only offered parcels. The reason: the Pune corporation now only permits those with allocated parking to serve customers. This has resulted in the closure of several restaurants across Pune, including Cafe Coffee Day. So, we picked up parcels and then headed back to college where we ate the idlis.

And, that was the closure of an interesting day

No, I am not talking about the movie, but just the last 20 days of my life; life that has kept me so busy that you haven’t read about any personal updates.

So, here’s a quick round up of the last two weeks of my life.

The week from 19th to 24th of Jan was like any other week of my life. Spent all of it blogging, reading, eating, talking and sleeping.

23rd was the first and last test of this semester. The test was on Strategic Marketing. We were given a choice between a two simple questions and a case on TESCO. IMO, education should be practical and case based to ensure that people actually apply their minds to everything. A healthy mix of theory and practicals is ideal. However, MBA turned out to be primarily a learn by rote, which is something I simply can’t do. Hence, was forced to understand and write exams where results took a hit. No regrets on that, because I put in my best and did well so far

Aditya, Sneha, Namrata and me decided to go out for dinner on 23rd. After much pondering we went to Haka’s on FC Road, Pune. The food sucked completely and totally. Really felt like I was cheated of my money.

Took the early morning Volvo to Mumbai on 24th to spend the long weekend at home. Met up with Lil white mouse on 24th evening for dinner. I had to get the taste of the horrible Chinese food out of my mouth. So, we headed off to our favorite joint Dynasty. As usual the crab meat soup was delicious. We ordered the Seafood platter and it turned out to be sizzling and not dry, though I would have sworn it was dry the last time I ordered that.

Sunday, the 25th was a quiet day. Lil white mouse came over in the evening to spend some time.

26th is the Republic Day of India and so a public holiday. As a result the roads are usually empty and people stick home. This weekend was different because many had left the city for the long weekend.

I went over to Lil white mouse’s place in the afternoon and we then went shopping to Westside, near Opera House as it was the last day of their sale. Following this, we returned home and then to 5 Spice in Bandra. We were seated at the Non-Smoking, Non-Alcoholic sections of the restaurant, which didn’t make a difference, since it was a dry day.

The service here was a lot slower, possibly because the design of the place is such. The however, remains delicious

I initially planned on returning to Pune on 27th, but postponed that to the next day. Spent 27th at home, working almost all day. Took the earliest Volvo I could to find my way back to Pune.

The last few days has been dinner at Tamanna, dinner at Mezza9, a class and presentation for Strategic Marketing. Looking at my mention of that subject you may tend to think I’ve shifted to Marketing. Well, no, I remain a Finance graduate. That is just one subject

I’ve given Techtites a new look yet again. So, will be spending tonight working on that one.

August is always a high-activity month with a huge number of birthdays and other occasions.

Freshers’ Party

After being postponed several times, the Fresher’s Party finally took place on August 6.

Dance parties aren’t really my favorite and this is usually no exception, especially when the DJ should pay for playing the trash he dished out!

Without doubt, I spent a good portion of my time outside the venue, which was the SIU poolside.

Food however, was better this time, with chicken added to the menu. Needless to say I ensured I ate well.

Below is a photo of me with my date and below that is a photo of five of us in our group.

The Birthday

On 12th, was Sumukhi’s birthday. She threw the party on Tamana rooftop for about 40 of us. Food for me was primarily chicken. (Did I tell you that I avoid vegetarian food?)

Another thing I avoid is dancing free style. I prefer ballroom, the little that I know! Here’s Sumukhi with the three of us roommates.

Anyway, Suchi was the DJ for a good portion of the time until yours truly took over the laptop. Spent the next 45 minutes making people dance! For serious wanna-be deejays out there, Virtual DJ is an amazing software. The demo version works very well for a 21 day period.

Among other stuff

Our area has been facing major power cuts. We had no power this weekend and a good portion of the time the generator was also switched off.

We decided to go off to the city. We had to shop for Sumukhi and also had good time to kill. Went over to Pune Central to shop for the same. IMO, the place is very badly designed and it was horribly crowded being a weekend.

After some shopping, we dropped into Little Italy next door. Little Italy is a completely vegetarian restaurant, but they specialize in pizzas and pastas, so I could survive! The food was decent, service was bad and bill was high

We tramped back into Pune Central after dinner and landed up in Food Bazaar at the top floor. Did some heavy grocery shopping, picking up apples, biscuits, corn flakes and juices. We’re realized it makes more sense to go out there once a week and pickup food instead of regularly visiting Sweety stores in campus.

Ohh, btw, I’m in Mumbai for the next few days

And, have you visited Techtites lately? There’s a new look and regular updates.

If there is one thing I hate doing, then it is walking. And more than hating walking, I hate walking around in the hot sun, which is pretty much what we did all over Panaji.

I began the day making frankfurters and eggs for breakfast. Could have done with some pepper and a fan as well, but well, breakfast wasn’t all that bad.

We set off around 10 towards Panjim or Panaji as it is called now. The plan was to meet Dora near Miramar. We caught the tempo (mini-bus) to Panaji directly and landed at their prass (depot) in an hours time.

We took another bus from there and landed at Miramar which was the last stop. We harrassed the conductor a good deal because we weren’t sure where we intended to reach. This portion seems to be a lot more developed, with good roads and beautiful houses.

Miramar also happens to have a clean beach where Crispin, Lil white mouse, Ruth and me killed time until Dora joined us later.

We took quite a few pictures at the beach for those interested in the view (with some of us in it).

After spending sometime on the beach, we left it in search of the museum, which was the original reason we had come to Panaji. Along the way I stumbled upon Lil white mouse noticed the LnT House in Miramar. For those who know, I was with LnT till August 2006, before quitting to pursue my MBA.

Strangely, no one had heard of a museum in this area, so we finally headed back to Panaji in search of the museum. Out there, we came across several people guiding us in several directions, as well as the occasional a museum doesn’t exist message.

It was almost lunch time and we were highly irritated by the whole deal and so decided to just eat first and ask questions later!

Crispin was raving of a place he got a full fish platter for only Rs. 200/-. In Mumbai, you would pay anything between 450 to 750 for a platter in a decent restaurant.

Crispin took us to The Ritz … nah not really, it was the Ritz Classic where we were served this huge platter of fish. Also added a prawn curry and rice and all four of us were stuffed properly with minimum damage to our pockets!

And on our way back, Ruth, Crispin and I indulged in some paan.

We renewed our search for the museum and the conflicting answers continued as well. It was nearing 3pm and we had walked for pretty much most of the day (read above how I feel about this!)
My frustration levels were reaching a peak and was really glad when everyone agreed to stop walking and just get back to Mapusa, which is exactly what we did.

Back at Mapusa, the trio introduced me to Gadbad Icecream. Gadbad Icecream is a mixture of several flavours of icecream along with jelly, fruits and nuts and a wafer biscuit. Will say that one such icecream is enough to fill an empty stomach and all this for just 25 bucks!

After the stopover, we headed back home. On the way we stopped by at Andrea‘s house, where I decided to check if I could get the Reliance Netconnect working. I did get signal, but it was too miserable to do any browsing.

Also had a glass of burnt feni. Burnt feni is made by setting the feni on fire. I was able to get a low quality photo of this, but you get to see the blue flame.

Dinner was quick and after a short rosary, we tucked ourselves into bed.

Had dinner yesterday at a nice restaurant called Woodlands with A. Mercy, her husband Anil and dad

The place serves Chettinad food… yummy food.

Ate well. My cough is still troubling me a lot… a dry cough that just refuses to leave!

Woke up at my usual 10.30am this morning as well. Have to go to church this evening followed by the prayer meeting, so my evening is already booked.

I haven’t taken photographs of Ghala church yet, so that is on the agenda.

I seldom post negative reviews on my blog but this place was such a turn off that I won’t even keep a more link in this post! Also, I haven’t used expletives in this post though I was very tempted to do so.

Planet Veggie happens to be a restaurant in 24 Karat. While I really liked the theatre, the restaurant really sucked.

Being primarily a non-vegetarian, the only reason I visited the restaurant was because of the food coupons (100bucks isn’t a small sum).

We decided to order ice-creams, since the rest of the menu wasn’t really tempting.

We waited for more than 10 minutes for the waiter to take our order, which was just a glimpse on how crappy the service was. I decided not to leave a tip because of this. X(

When the waiter did finally come to take our order we find that many of the ice creams on the menu were not available. Why put a damn thing on the menu if you don’t sell it ! X(

We finally order a dull vanilla with Chocolate topping ice cream and a chocolate milkshake.

After paying Rs.45 for this we expected it to have a decent portion but found the quantity to be really minute X( (It’s free, so no complaining?)

And then I had to wait another 10 minutes before the waiter brought us the bill. We just dropped the coupons there and walked off.
If the coupons were redeemable as a tip, then he got himself 10 bucks for the crappy service.

I also realized that it wasn’t just me who had a problem as another set of people on another table were also served the wrong dish. They asked him to take it back.

I guess this place really needs to go back to the basics on serving their customers or I am sure they are going to get quite a few dirty reviews like this and maybe even worse ones.

As for now, I think I may post a review on Mouth Shut when I get the time.

To summarize:

• Definitely not value for money as the prices are steep and the portions are negligible.
• Service is miserable as we wasted a good amount of time just waiting to give our order and receive our bill
• Many of the dishes on the menu are not available, which just goes to show how ill planned they are
• The menu looked rather shabby as it has a lot of stickers all over it blanking out dishes and modifying prices

Well I’m really stunned that a theatre as good as 24 Karat had such a lousy restaurant like Planet Veggie. I’m definitely not stepping foot in that place again, until I read a better review of it.