"The Vegetarian"

I can't step into the kitchen on Sundays. Period.
This sunday was no different and we set out to go to our favorite haunt "Udupi Cafe" aka Nala Pak in Columbia Heights.
While we were in Bangalore, we used to regularly hunt out new dining experiences -especially vegetarian ones. But here, due to the lack of Indian vegetarian restaurants we restrict ourselves to the 2 veggie places-Udupi and India Cafe for dining and Bombay deli for chats.
So when we saw this sign board "The Vegetarian" about on Central avenue-we had to check it out. But we had no clue if it was a restaurant or just a shop by looking at it.
Anyway,we were determined to venture in. So what if it was located in a spooky place. So what if there have been recent shootings around that area...so what?

We ordered malai kofta and rotis...cos our romance started with malai kofta three years back at Fortune and that is something no one can go wrong with.
Food...though it did'nt taste awesome, it felt homely BUT they could do better - infact way ,way better in terms of cutlery and probably someone needs to tell them about dishwashers.If you're charging $9 for a malai kofta, we come to expect clean knives and plates along with it.The glasses had lip marks on them and the plates seemed so ancient with so many scratches from umpteen uses ( did I say that this restaurant was opened only last month ?)
!!!
They could do some help with interior decoration too-and not pick up some odd chairs and tables bought out of garage sale.
I dont think we would be going there ever again unless there is a need to remind ourselves how good Udupi is.

Tinger Tanger

As a natural instinct, on saturday- we got into the car and were aimlessly driving around when we decided to go to some mall different from the usual.We vaguely remembered passing by an outlet mall when we went to Duluth and decided to venture in that direction. The condition I put down was that we will travel a maximum of 50 miles and if no shop was spotted, turn around and get into a movie theatre. I have been waiting to watch A Good Year ever so long since I saw the trailers didn't want to postpone it to another weekend.
So....around the 43rd mile of our drive on 35N, we did see a board that read "bargain hunting at its best"- Tanger serves you with over 35 shops...I was thrilled with my husband's sense of "distance" and direction.
We naturally assumed that we should reach there in the next exit but that was not to be. After about 10 miles later, we did find this mall and then of course, shopped till we dropped dead. We got additional discount too as it happened to be Veterans day There was no energy left after that to watch any movie and we headed back home with our big hunts.

Of commercials and jingles

Recently, I have been downloading music that gets played as background score in ads - and no, they are not jingles, but they happen to be good tracks from well-known albums.
It goes like this... I watch the commercial...music sounds gr8... I check out the ad in youtube, do some search to find out the name of the album and download :).
My Today's pick is the latest of Geico's caveman series. The background score for this is "Remind Me" by Royksopp (album - melody a.m).
Watch the ad here in Youtube and let me know how you like it.
Another one I liked was Sheraton's $20 million ad campaign. Arabella Harrison sings "We belong"- orignally by Pat Benatar. You could check out the ad, again in youtube here :)

A Sunday pass

This Sunday, we hadn’t planned anything and were wondering how to spend the day when our friends called up to say we could join them for a visit to the science museum. They had got passes for it and we gladly jumped at the opportunity.
Sunday being a Gurupurab, our friends first wanted to visit the Gurdwara and we joined them there as I had never been to a gurdwara before and wanted to see how it is.
As we entered in,we were asked to cover our heads with scarves and were directed to the darbar hall where Guru Granth Sahib was housed. We stood there for a few minutes before the Holy Scriptures to say a silent prayer and bowed. After the prayers and chantings were over, it was time for lunch. We were offered Langar (food made in the communal kitchen) considered as blessing from the Guru. All the preparation, the cooking and the washing-up is done by voluntary helpers called Sewadars.
After this sacred and yummy meal, we set out to the science museum at St. Paul.
We had heard much about the "Body Worlds Museum” and wanted to see all those authentic human specimens preserved by plastination. But our hearts sank when we heard the prices (26 bucks per person) and we decided we weren’t science geeks after all :) We had a lot of fun in the experiment gallery. I was reminded of my younger days when my mom used to take me and my sister to the Birla planetorium/ Periyar science and tech centre in Kotturpuram,Chennai and we used to spend the whole day doing every experiment there.
I didn't care too much about the dinosaurs and collectors items. Apart from all this,there was an enjoyable show/ drama about Judge Oka of Japan and a scary egyptian mummy. That was one sunday!

Election drama

Though I am not inclined towards politics at all, I couldn’t help but watch the debates that go on for each race. With the senate elections round the corner, news papers and TV ads are doing as much as they can to fill our heads with ideas and opinions about each candidate.And Oh! the mudslinging-ads-it is a treat to watch them abuse each other. The ad agencies must be working over time to come up with such quick and witty retorts.
Coming back to debates...
though I have seen something similar in NDTV, debating has never been an essential feature in any Indian election campaign. Here, it is forms the core of a campaign. It atleast gives the people a chance to compare each candidate’s stance on major issues and choose a person sensibly. Did I say "sensibly" -I do not know really…
The candidate is first allowed to make his/her opening speech after which questions are answered on five to six hot issues of the time. I dont need to tell you what the major issues are this time- War...war...war...then of course,federal taxes, embryonic stem cell research , gay marriage blah blah blah...Then there is a rapid question round where each candidate can ask the other a quick question that needs to be answered in a maximum time of 45 sec…
Inbetween all this fun, I saw a full page ad on Star tribune called "Voter's guide Serious Catholics" where they have listed 5 non negotiable issues- Abortion, Euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research , human cloning and homosexual marriage...
Apparently, war is negotiable and so go on and support a candidate who supports war but never in your life vote for a supporter of human cloning.... :)

Subzero fun

Here we are in November and maybe I should start reading a book that goes like "how to enjoy outdoors in subzero chills "...
Last week a close friend of ours had come all the way from Oregon and all we did was spend the two days at outlet malls and the gr8 "Mall of America". Poor us...what can we do when everything (read weather) conspires against us to sit at home or go window shopping.

Though I hate to admit, I love window shopping- if you have exhausted all kinds of topics of conversation with me, then just take me to shop- even your closest mom and pop store would do. :) I get so fascinated by the kind of products retailers come up with and want to have one of everything - I am a "retailer's dream" -so my husband tells me. So whenever we go out shopping he asks me to make out a list of items "needed" lest I get duped into buying unnesessary stuff. And then of course, my window shopping can no more be called window shopping too :)

Well...so you needn't bother to ask me if I enjoyed at the Mall-of course I did. Moreover we were'nt even window shopping- my two friends actually started going crazy over the brands. I think they bought enough to get them thro till next diwali. :) One smart thing they taught me was to first hit the information center at the Mall and ask for the discount brochure. I believe you get it free if you are a AAA member or a student, else pay 5 bucks to get one and believe me,you wouldn't regret it.

Summing it up, weekend was fun fun and more fun- first there was a lot of shopping and we talked so much and watched so many good movies...
It brought alive those campus day memories at K when we would take a walk around the campus late in the night, have a cup of tea ( essentially a sugar-water concentrate) in the night canteen and head back to work. What would I not do to get those idyllic days back again?