Happy Hour ... and Me

I spent a good part of my childhood being allergic to one food ingredient that is considered as ‘the food of Gods’ and sinful love of millions of lives. Thankfully, I outgrew the allergy as I entered my teens and since then attacked the world of chocolates with vengeance!! So, Chocolate room was like living a dream, where everything around me was chocolate and only chocolate. I visited this place just once, as I discovered this when I was at the fag end of my Chennai stint & landed up having a 3 course chocolate meal!!!!. That’s true; everything from starters to main course to desert was a chocolate by-product. Imagine having Pizzas, wraps, sandwiches all with chocolate in it. It’s like attaining a chocolate nirvana!! However too much of something is really bad enough. As a foodie,I strongly believe that a good meal should leave you satisfied,wanting for more and not so over-whelmed that you don’t want to see nor have more of that meal for a while. So my recommendation with Chocola...

During my stay in Chennai, my friend Sandhya took me to this Thai joint one evening post work. I was skeptical about trying Thai food at Chennai, and therefore kept my expectations under check. However, I was proved completely wrong as here is where I landed up having the best 'Indian' Thai food. Well, I have yet to visit Thailand, to taste the authentic Thai food, as I believe that the taste is customized to the countries local taste, but amongst the Indian joints, this one is one of the best I have had. A simple and extremely classy place, with wood that decor renders a very warm and cozy feeling. For the crowd mostly you’ll see a lot of corporates and few families as I doubt if Chennai folks have still awakened to this amazing place. The main attraction I found in this place is the complementary starter called Mein Khum, hopefully have got the name right. They serve you a leaf, which I am not so sure what it is, but its shaped like a beetle leaf, on that need to put little h...

I have been meaning to write this blog for a while now but somehow got caught into a series of events. Anyways, about a month ago one of my roomies, Swati left for her hometown for good. Over dinner, a common friend of ours who has been struggling to get a transfer out of Chennai, congratulated her and jokingly said “Tere paap dhul gaye aur tu Chennai se ja rahi hai” meaning that your sins have got erased and so you are leaving Chennai. We all laughed at this statement, but I quietly wondered if Chennai is really that bad. I distinctly remember how scandalized my friends were I broke the news that I had got my posting in Chennai. Some of them actually told me that I was out of my mind that I agreed to go to Chennai. Most of their concerns were actually revolved around the fact that after living all my life in a city like Mumbai, it would be exceedingly unimaginable to stay in Chennai and suspected that the place and its culture would be harsh on me. Honestly, in a way it scared me a bi...