Yes, hello.

I won't even bother pretending to be sorry for not having posted in a loooooong time. In fact since before one had heard of terms like "macaca". So first the meta-stuff. This is a brief post about some good eats, a new blogger on the block and anything else I remember before I sign out.

First up, Champa Garden - its a Vietnamese-Lao-Thai place run by a sweet Vietnamese guy and his Thai girlfriend's family. The food is uniformly good, spicy and plentiful and not mucho dineros either. Please if you live anywhere near Oakland - do try it!! I love their Pad WoonSen salad (full of Thai chilli flavor) and the Nam Kaew (Rice ball salad - very like the Nam Kao Tod at Lotus of Siam that I had commented on earlier.

Oh an old, old friend has decided to blog. He is otherwise a concocter of Crocin-laden cough-drops (excuse the inaccuracies, Bhuts, I was going for the alliteration here) and horrible PJs. Please to give loud welcome to the writer of diaries and snake-charmer extraordinaire - Sayon!!

Hmm, what else - not much - shall go watch Kshudhito Pashan tomorrow and may even end up watching "Mera Sapna Money Money" [Aside @Sagnik: "Child are you sure there even is a movie by that improbable name??? Sigh"]

Oh well, till next time, pip-pip and all that - and oh yeah - Macacas Rule!!

"I'd rather be a pig than a Fascist"

Only a bunch of chowfiends could order eight dishes for six people at a place with big portions, eat it all and then step out to do a gelato taste test immediately afterwards. So it was that I spent yesterday evening at Great China, Gelato Milano and Gelateria Naia. Favorites of the night - the Ants Climbing a Tree (yes, really), the lemon at Milano and the 99% chocolate at Naia. Yum.

Today was a more impromptu Indonesian dinner. We had a great Gado Gado - the peanut sauce seemed housemade thankfully, Achar, Beef Rendang (a much superior version to the one we had in the misnamed Nyonya Bistro in Milpitas last Sunday), Ayam Kalasan (which was a moist grilled chicken served with a fabulous chilli sauce), Mee Goreng as well as a crispy tempeh in spicy sauce and an eggplant in chilli paste. Oh and a soup called Lontong Cap Go Meh? And an excellent coconut rice! Enough food for six? We did have itty bitty bits left over.

Hmm and tomorrow is dinner at a friend's place - she said very homestyle desi food. Then on Friday I am having dinner with a friend at the new Vietnamese place on Solano which serves - I quote the website - Vietnamese Tapas with a French twist. This intrepid reporter will be back with more details afterwards of course. Until then burp, hic and cheers!

P.S. Yes I lurve Miyazaki!

Been tagged :(

Arnab, the Greatbong himself tagged me for the Silly Picture meme. I had a hard time finding a silly picture of mine or at least one I would want anybody to see! Anyway here goes...



That was from the usual Universal Studio trip that every Desi in Southern California always makes.

Regular blogging (with words) will resume soon hopefully - the lovely Lali and a mischievous fairy have suitably shamed and harassed me into at least thinking about returning to blogging. I know they are just jealous of my infinite ability to procrastinate, hmph!

P.S. Oh and of course, the Lali, the Rimi, the Swati and the Priya are hereby tagged for the silly picture meme too, yippee!

Dhanshiritir teere and all that

There is no way I could describe my vacation in a blog post so I shall let some pictures do the work instead!


Blogmeet in Calcutta.


Bayon Temple in Cambodia.


Ta Prohm Temple in Cambodia (aka the Tomb Raider one). Its being restored by ASI.


Banteay Srei Temple in Cambodia - it looks for all the world like the Bankura / Bishnupur "pora mati" temples but tis made of sandstone and exquisitely carved.


Angkor Wat - it was hot and humid and so worth the trip...


Those steps slope at an alarming 70 degrees. It forces you to go up the central tower of Angkor on all fours to pay obeisance to Vishnu.


The view though is so so worth it!!


The Grand Palace in Krung Thep or the City of Angels - don't know what that is? Go look it up!


Awwww, two old friends!!


Chinatown in Singapore - five dollar watches (Singapore dollars mind you!) and yummy food...

Last post for a while

Sigh. I got them. Highlights I mean. Except the highlights seem to have taken over my head and I look like Sulata Chowdhury. To those who cannot relate to that particular example - I will say Pran. In Zanjeer.
I am off to finish packing now. I have too much stuff for my hardcase 28" but too little to justify taking my dinky little carryon stroller thingy. Point to ponder: If I went about barefeet in Cal that would probably solve the problem. Hmm.

Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go...

In my mind, I am already on vacation. The effect this has had on my work is not something I'd like my managers to be aware of. And they are not. Yet.

My stupid bank apparently cancelled my debit/ATM card, along with lotsa others', as a safety precaution and promised to send me a replacement card "soon". On calling and cribbing they (that particular person will be getting her very own voodoo effigy soon and I mean soon - not "soon") promised to send it overnight so I can get it in hand before my trip. Rest assured, it has not arrived and will not arrive before I leave. Several fruitless conversations with customer service agents (who in their defence, were easy to get through to and smarter and nicer than expected and maybe even non-robotic) later, I still have no hope of getting the card in hand before I leave. Sigh. It took writing a nasty email to customer service and a gobi paratha to cool me down. Though I am still gnashing my teeth in not so frequent intervals...

On the other hand - my friend G will be in Thailand and not away on a trip the week I will be there and she has already planned a fabulous trip to a jazz festival in a little non-touristy beach town with great food and thats such good news that I am almost wary of blogging about it so as not to jinx it someway. Phew.

Oh and I just finished watching a very interesting interview - Salman Rushdie hosting in place of Charlie Rose and talking to Deepa Mehta - mostly about Water. One interesting point Mehta made was about how angry (think capital letters, bolded) she was after the sets for the movie got vandalized in Varanasi. One of the reasons she said it took her five years to get back to making Water is that she felt that she had to stop being angry or risk affecting the movie with that anger. Interesting. So true on whichever frame of reference one thinks of. Not that I think she has fully lost that anger even now - there was a lot of what sounded like abhimaan - a kind of resentment towards a country that she feels is her own but has treated her like a foreigner.

That interview was followed by another equally interesting one. Brian Grazer interviewing Malcolm Gladwell. Sorry I was too distracted by their hair to notice what they were talking about.

Decisions, decisions - do I get new highlights or not? Yay or nay? You too can vote by SMS. [grin]

Keys of the kingdom!

I finished this evening going through the contents of the huge recycling bins next to the mailboxes in my building. My car keys and remote were obviously at the very bottom of the pile of papers - mostly junk mail people throw away. Sigh.
Don't ask me how they got there - I spent the day thinking they were irretrievably lost. Oh well.