Happy Hour ... and Me

As a kid every time I accompanied my dad to good old humble restaurants, I would linger behind a few seconds till he left the table, to quickly grab the coins that he would place in the sauf bowl (I thought he forgot the money & once when I reminded him, all he said was ‘that’s ok’, so I ensured his money was safe with me, you see). So this assured source of income for my piggy bank continued, till the day he caught me picking the coins (damn my timing!!).That’s when he introduced me to the concept of tipping, that we should leave behind some money for the waiters who served us. However, the last couple of years, our bills have seen a 5 to 12 per cent ‘service charge’ added to it, leaving us confused with the question ‘to tip or not to tip’. Some say its goes to the Government and some say it doesn’t. So here in my next blog, I decided to decode the mystery of the Service Charge for you. Your bill will predominantly contain VAT and service tax (which is applicable to restaurants ha...

Recently, IDEA Cellular's been coming with interesting set of advertisements, carrying a catchy tag line “What an Idea sirji.” So their recent AD features an idea to combat the increasing population of India. They suggest that, couples should get hooked onto 3G instead of each other. Now the ad was very humorously done and is likeable, however on the hindsight, we all know that technology which is meant to get people closer,has actually also pulled people away in its own way. This pulled me back an incident that happened few years ago, when the electric switch board of my building caught fire.Resulting which, we had to spend about a couple of days in absolute darkness. So after dinner, all our doors, windows would be opened and everyone would gather together into groups and chit-chat the night away. Even though living without electricity made me relate to my nomad ancestors in a very special way, I actually started looking forward to the evenings, when we would spend time ...

You are heading out to eat, extremely hungry, with stomach making all possible grinding sounds and the last thing you want is that the food lets you down? For me, in such situations  I head straight to New Yorkers  and it has never let me down since my bachpan ke din. So before I start, I will try not being biased about what I write, but honestly that going to be a little hard What do they serve.?, Italian, Mexican & Indian, however I don’t visit the Indian food department here, simply cause if you wanted to have Indian food,then please head to the next door Creame Center or Shiv Sagar. You basically come to New Yorkers to have Nachos (one of the best in the city, almost close after Oven Fresh in my list), American Corn Cheese Balls, Tachos and the sizzlers. Now I am taking off my rose-tinted glasses and to look at the down-side, the food has the flavors and touch of the Indian Cuisines. May be that’s why it appeals to the Indian taste buds so much, so it continues to...