Food Festival Continues

My tryst with international cuisine coninues. It was Chinese food last Friday for Lunch. We went to the Sun Flower Chinese restaurant which is about a 15 minutes drive from our office in Polaris parkway. The restaurant is in a corner and could easily be missed. The lunch package has tea, soup and rice, all complimentary along with the main course. The Tea tasted better than what it would be normally. Traditional Chinese Tea!!!. As usual, my choices were restricted to the food items marked green on the menu card. The soup had vegetables served in a colorless liquid, but tasted good. I ordered brown steamed rice with a buddhist delight for my main course, while my friends applied permutations and combinations with number of dishes and how they could share it. I think we ordered more food than what we could eat. The quantity is much more than what was served in the italian restauarant where we soothed our taste buds 2 weeks ago. The buddhist delight had raddish, onion, carrots, brocolli cooked in a mild sauce. It really didnot go well with rice which tasted a bit sweet. I could wolf down only half of the delightful Buddhist delight and so were others. Some of my friends packed the left over for their dinner. The lunch got over with a chinese fortune cookie. Its a desert that has a small piece of paper hidden in between two crispy pieces of biscuits that and has some words of wisdom. It was a a different experience with the taste of food and the ambience of the restaurant. We plan to visit the house of Japan next week. I have been to Japanese restaurants before, but will share my experience with the Japanese taste once i have it.

Soul Stirring Music

Ilayaraja is an all time great. Till now, i have not been able to move away from his tunes of the 80s' to any other form of music. I was getting bored on this Sunday afternoon and was browsing you tube for his evergreen movie Back Ground Music(BGMs). I happened to listen to the BGM of the movie Idayam. I have seen the movie many times. And one more time, it just transported me to a different world. A soul stirring & a divine experience. The movie was released sometime in 1992 when i was in my graduation and i still remember my friend talking about the movie for nearly 2 weeks after he had seen it in the Devi complex. I happened to see it in the Kumaran Theatre in Madipakkam along with 2 of my cousins. This was a movie which embraced me like a breeze. I would say that 90% of this effect was made possible only because of the Maestro's BGM. Added to it is the Spelendid Picturization and a perfect screen play!!!. It remains one of my best movies till now. I dont think i have seen or heard about any tamil movie till now that narrates romance in such an impressive way, between a man and a woman using the language of music. I have seen the movie many times now in the cable channels. Just hear to the BGM on a quiet afternoon. The BGM brings in a state of peace in me. I can feel my nerves calming down. I truly believe that music can cure diseases and am certain that Raja is one of the pioneers in this field of medicine.

Rendezvous with International Cuisines

I am once again in the US, this time in Columbus, Ohio. The work is very interesting and the people are friendly and make me feel at home. I have been lucky enough, all my previous trips to escape the harsh winter. But this time, my stay is a bit long here and is in the peak of the winter season. It has snowed only a couple of times this season and the weather god has been considerate. The temperature in the afternoons lingers around the 5 degree centigrade mark and falls below zero during night. To me, December was very cold, but seems very mild for some of the news papers here. They are now writing about the city entering into the coldest season of the year. Dont really understand what it means. But anyway, the stay has been good till now. Every time when i visit the US, I make it a point to visit all the Indian restaurants in that city. But this time aroud, I have decided to taste a different international cuisine every week. We(myself and my team) started of with the Indian menu a week ago and tasted Italian(Olive Gardens) last week.

The ambience was very pleasant. The food was good though, the names were a bit difficult to pronounce. The dishes were blande and went well with my taste. I started with the Italian bread & salads followed by the Egg plant Parmigiana & the stuffed mushrooms. Choices for Vegetarians is always limited. We have plans to visit the Chipotle Mexican grill this week to taste the burritos and tacos. This will be followed by Thai and the Mongolian Barbeque. I am liking it.