City is busy celebrating Ganesha festival, even the busy streets like this SP road which is an electronics & engineering market does celebrate festivities by way of offering free lunches to the community.
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The family dropped by at Coffee Day the other day for a steaming night cap, after dinner. When the coffees came, my son pointed out to the smiley poster on the wall. The message there was interesting : If you don’t see a smiley in your cup, the coffee is on the house.

As you can see, my cup had something that looked like a coffee bean - not even remotely close to a smile. I alerted our friendly waiter about the smiley and sure enough, they didn’t charge me for my coffee.

Net takeaway : If there’s no smiley in your coffee cup, there’s bound to be one on your face … when you see the bill. Nice gesture.

(Not sure how long this offer is open, so do check this out the next time you’re at Coffee Day.)

There’s a link to “latte art” here, if you’re interested.

- Are we eating veggies that are cultivated in wastewater?

a new 53-city survey, including Bangalore and Chennai, conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) indicates that most of those studied are using untreated or partially treated wastewater for agriculture. In over 70 per cent of the cities studied, more than half of urban agricultural land is irrigated with wastewater that is either raw or diluted in streams with wide ranging implications. Less said the better for the health hazards due to heavy metals, a wide spectrum of pathogens and organic compounds that are hazardous to the environment and human health.

“In areas where infectious diseases due to enteric pathogens are common, these pathogens are found in very high concentrations in the sewage water. When this water is used for irrigation without any treatment the pathogens are applied to the agricultural land. This is a potential health risk to people exposed to it, such as field workers and their families, consumers and handlers of wastewater-irrigated crops and people living in the neighborhood, passing the fields frequently” says this report.

As a proud resident of Malleshwaram a few years back, the only the other place I ever wished to live in was - you guessed it - Jayanagar 4th block. For vegetarian middle-class souls, these two areas in Bangalore are worth Paris, London, and New York rolled into one. And not without reason. There are few such places in this universe where one can go around with a list of tasks and get them all done in a single walk. From getting clothes altered, to sipping a cup of coffee and tucking in an idli or two, to saying a hello to a desired God there is a little bit of everything for the mind, body, and soul.  Because of the restrictions of space and patience of my readers, I am going with my  gut feeling and writing about that one thing that you, my readers can never have enough of - great food that is light on the wallet. (more…)

If you get into ‘Blue Bell Sweets’ located at Unity building JC Road, don’t miss trying ‘Turkish Halwa’..
The name may sound a little weird but the taste is awesome.

This is how it looks but hey don’t go by the color of it.

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It’s always nice to be able to go and attend when a writer whose work you respect has his centenary celebrations!

Perch, a theatre group based in Chennai, came to Ranga Shankara to celebrate a hundred years since the Malayalam writer, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, was born. Perch has members from various backgrounds, and they are doing a great job of exploring the boundaries of theatre.

There were three parts to the celebrations at Ranga Shankara: the adaption of seven of Basheer’s stories into a play, “Sangathi Arinhya!” by Perch; the Moplah food festival at the Ranga Shankara cafe by Anju Sudarshan; and the collection of photographs (”Images from Kozhikode”) and sketches (by Vasudevan Namboodiri) of Basheer and his world.

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If you are a great fan of Jalebi’s, here’s one interesting place where you can relish some yummy Jalebi’s.

The place is called ‘Gundappa’s Store’s’. This is located at Basweshwarnagar. (Opposite Pavitra Paradise)

Here are some more pictures . Have a look at the way it’s being done.

It tastes really awesome! Try them. It’s worth it.

- Pure Punjabi taste in an atmosphere so down to earth!

No nonsense but good food at an affordable price. It took me sometime to absorb the shock looking at the place and the stunning crowd that flocks it…all those reactions took off as soon as tastebuds took over..

Ok, where? Bobby da dhaba shares a common wall with Ulsoor gurudwara , the little shack with just five to six table has been keeping people busy licking fingers and fulfilling ‘paratha’ desires… !
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Working in an office on Bannerghatta road, we aren’t actually pampered for choice when it comes to eating out, especially when the time you get to eat in that place is an hour or so. The closest places are Sahib Sindh Sultan at Forum, Bay leaf and another restaurant at Raheja Arcade, Kormangala, and Rampur ka something, again at Kormangala. We have been to these places so many times that the waiters can now tell exactly how many shirts we repeat in a week.
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I was at VV Puram a couple of days back & decided to visit the famous area near VB Bakery to eat something. This area is called by different names. Some call it Food Street & others like my friend who resides in that area calls it Circle. It is basically one small stretch of road where hawkers & small hotels sell varieties of food ranging from capsicum bajjis to ‘obbattu’ to the regular idlis & dosas. This specific area has been written about previously as well in Metblogs. (you could check those posts by searching for ’street food’)
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