Jamies: A review

We had some office guests over from all over the world, so decided to take them to have a bite to eat at the nearest restaurant to the office. Here’s my review on UrbanSpoon:

"Avoid. Wine good, ambience good. Starter was good, interesting way to serve it, on a plank resting on two cans. A tad pretentious. But the main meal was eminently forgetable. Ordered a 10 ounce rib eye. Asked for medium rare and got medium-well done. Asked ...for chips and beans to go with it and both were horrible. Well, ok not horrible but at 2.50 I expect a decent amount of chips and beans. That's like a bloody kids meal. And the dessert was not good, tiramasu was too clayey and heavy, the chocolate cake was stogy. But do go there and check out the flush in the men's room. It's a veritable antique made by the firm called as T Crapper. Yes, that's where the word crapper came from. And on the way, look at the miserable Lugubrious looking pig roasting on the spit. Overpriced, pretentious restaurant with average food."

 

there’s the steak

 

and here’s the whole roasting pig

Crapper's Valveless Waste Preventer

And the crapper :) Here’s the original:

Sights in Vale Farm

My lovely little princess had her birthday at Vale Farm and took some interesting snaps while I was parking the car. Rather amusing and interesting.

First was the arrows. I liked the juxtaposition. The idea that you would have traffic safety centre at the East Lane Theatre. Obviously your best chance of being fine at traffic accidents is to be theatrical :), heh. And that too authorised vehicles only. If you want to learn about traffic safety, you cannot drive there, lol, only walk. See the walking sign on the traffic safety centre board.

 

Some of the big slides from the fantasy island giant jungle gym are kept outside.

Dead slow? any slower and I will be buried all right.

My first shot at Huevos Ranchero

You know I bought few books yesterday and decided to inaugurate the first one today. Its a book about simple recipes.

Its the big red book in the middle.

Anyway, this is what my eldest cost centre decided for breakfast and little princess said that she will manage the process and tell me what to do. As usual.

So anyway, this is what we were cooking. Huevos Rancheros. I didn't have half of the things. I didn't have good tomatoes. Didn't have feta cheese, no beans, no tortillas, no pepper, no red chillies, no proper garlic cloves but what the hell. So we went forward and cooked it. Please bear in mind that the above is still cooking, its not fully cooked yet.

And this is what it turned out to be. Marvel of marvels, my eldest actually asked for another helping. Piled on some Tabasco and we were off with some bread. It was good. But I think i have to cook it a bit more, the eggs remained a bit runny. And the 3 fusspots at home dont like runny eggs.

Next time!…..

And now I have to think about dinner, eldest cost centre wants to have a rack of lamb.

The Rack of Lamb

I think this turned out to be nice :)

That’s an aged Welsh rack of lamb, with thyme, parsley, Dijon mustard and some other secret herbs with a bit of salt and pepper.

Perfectly cooked inside and out, medium rare :) As Diya says, Baba’s restaurant is open for business. Bon Appétit. The kids helped out totally.

Photo Essay: Diya’s Birthday Celebrations

It was Diya’s 6th birthday on 1st of November. As usual, it turned into a week long celebration. We had a cake cutting ceremony first at home.

That’s a cool cake, eh? nice one. very Halloweeny :)

See the two witches having fun with the birthday cake.

Baba and lil princess sitting down on the most important task of dealing with the presents

we have a great little 3D view thingamabob

and we have a cute little house with Sylvanian Families, some penguins and stuff.

Ready for the next party at Fantasy Island. This is my first narrow jeans. I look very swish and put together :)

Waiting for the guests to arrive. See my table all nicely marked out

Here’s the first view of the fantasy island jungle gym

And the party place 

This is where the parents hang out

And this is the kids section

Mum is trying to show something about a new spiffing ring that she has with emeralds and sapphires and stuff.

the guests start arriving with the yummy mummies :), and the presents

I am off playing now

sometimes climbing up and down

usually running around like a demented beetle

or jumping up and down like an excited sugar overdosed grasshopper

This is my friend Suhani

There is a whacking big slide, almost 30 feet high. And I was brave enough to go down it. But I didn't hold my hands to my shoulders and then I lost control and banged my feet on the slide and then I cried and then Baba held me and cuddled me and then I sniffed a bit more and then Baba took me around and kissed the feet better and then I felt a bit better but not that good so I sniffed and cried a bit more and then my friend called me and then I forgot that i had got hurt and then l went playing

I am a princess.  

here’s the cake. See the 2 ballet shoes? This is what Baba and Mamma got me to celebrate the fact that I passed my National Ballet Exam

my feet were still hurting and I snivelled and sniffed a bit. Then Baba gave me some cuddles and against kissed my feet and then I was a brave girl and wiped my tears and then started to have fun.

here’s the birthday candle lighting

and a very sorry looking piñata

one of my friends had a little 3 week old brother. Baba went all broody looking at the baby while Mamma totally ignored broody Baba.

they were feeding us with some industrial quality liquid purporting to be blackcurrant and orange juice.

Dada was totally bored out his mind, he went and had a burger.

We are all queuing up to hit the piñata.

this girl was describing what to do with the stick.

it broke at the top, silly thing. Anyway, I broke it open and then took out all the toys and then everybody had 2-3 toys and there was a big scramble and we all had loads of toys and then we shared them around.  



We all queued up to take the party bags and cake slices. It was a huge amount of fun. The full slide show is here.

Photo Essay: A trip down Swansea way

I had gone to Swansea to give couple of lectures, one to the first year students as part of the bank’s outreach programme to first year students and the second was to the MBA students. Its a pretty good time, love to interact with the students, but Swansea as a city leaves a bit to be desired. Anyway, here are my photographs from the trip.

 

While on the train platform at Cardiff, I noticed the name of the brewery across the road. Brains. That’s it, i knew nobody could defeat the UK when it can brew brains in a brewery! :).

 

I reached Swansea around 0950 hours, about 20 minutes early so thought of taking a walk around the train station to see the sights. The weather wasn't as good, it was damp and wet. Perhaps standard for the city but it didn't help the feeling that Swansea had seen better days. Given that first time visitors would see Swansea when they come out of the train station and then would see this rather tired, crumbling set of streets and buildings, I was surprised that the city council hasn't done something about it.

Here’s the church. Interesting structure, quite small.

 

The first was this rather nice church. Looked like it was Greek Orthodox from the language of the notice.

 

Nice autumnal walk up into the back of the church.

   

 

The graves were well maintained and the carved gravestone lettering was still quite clearly legible.

Nice railings as well.

Here’s the walkway back down to the street.

Then few feet up was perfection!

Selling wedding dresses. I found the entire scenario and situation very depressing. The irony of calling the shop as perfection, in front of a dingy street, with crumbling buildings selling stuff to celebrate such a joyful occasion such as a wedding? Sad.

 

Then comes the Palace Theatre. This is a building with a good distinguished history. At that time of construction, the place was apparently top of the pile and the road was called as Prince of Wales Road.

 

This is apparently one of only two purpose built music halls left in the UK.

 

 
 

And this is supposed to be a Grade II Listed Building. Which means that it cannot be torn down and replaced with flats. It can only be allowed to crumble away. I never understand this concept in the UK. You stick a listing on top of a building but there is no other help. If anybody wants to do something with it, they are ripped off by having to replace it exactly as it was originally. Its bureaucracy gone mad. There should be a statute of limitations. If it hasnt been sold after say 3 years, then its rezoned or reclassified, bring it down and then do something else with it. This is just simply destroying rest of the value of the street.

 

At this moment, apparently its up for auction for £250,000 but nobody is purchasing it. I guess nobody wants to touch it with a barge pole.

Sir Anthony Hopkins seems to have made his first professional stage appearance here way back in 1960. Even the road sign is all manky and looks leprous. The windows are boarded up. Handsome building but looking horrible.

 

What a sad sight. With weeds growing out of the top of the lintel and also on the top. You can just imagine how imposing this entrance would have been in its heyday. But now? the facade is crumbling. The rusting iron nails are exposed, the covering seems to have dropped away.

General miserable sight on the front door. Somebody managed to get inside and take some good pics here.

 

If you want to get some architectural details on this building, then click here.

 

A group seems to have been formed to protect and renew this building. There’s the map from the site shown above. Quite an interesting architectural plan, eh? I went on walking a bit more.

 

Here’s Bethesda Baptist Chapel. It closed in 1994 and typically, this is also crumbling away. The stonework is absolutely brilliant, very detailed work. Quite impressive indeed.

A great list of documents relating to this church is here.

Nice gravestone

not so nice one with ivy all over it.

The churchyard has not been maintained at all.

 

From the front, they seem to be doing some repairs to the building. But the portico just does not suit the building at all. Again, the looming weather with grey clouds doesnt really do Swansea any favours.

Looking up over the hill

 

The Swansea bus service. The sheer perkiness of the colours, Purple and Orange and the buses are very eye catching, specially when you compare it with the general dinginess around the place.



Somebody is taking the mickey. Salvation is nigh? With a McDonalds burger? Blasphemy!

 

Time was getting on, so I wanted to head back into the train station and catch a taxi to the university when this road sign caught my eye. Ebenezer Street leading to the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

 
Looks like this was a hotbed of Baptists here. Here’s the history of this church. I quote from this page:

The area surrounding Ebenezer has also seen some dramatic changes with run­down commercial properties being replaced with blocks of flats. The potential for outreach is great, but there are real problems. In the past we have visited these flats and we thank God for the contacts made, yet so many are now securely closed to casual callers. We find ourselves like the apostle praying, literally, for an 'open door' to reach those who live on our doorstep.

A rather sad indictment of this general area. I tell you, it did depress me..i took off post haste. But I promise you, its much better during summer..I think. Here’s the full slide show.

Mauritius Photo Essay #5, a Sunday Market Sojourn

My flight was supposed to leave at 10 PM on a Sunday. So I was pretty much free for the day. Wanted to go and see some libraries and museums, but as luck would have it, the damn country shuts down on Sunday. The concierge at the hotel suggested I go check out the Sunday market. Ok, so the Sunday market was eminently forgettable, its just a corrugated shed with 3 rows of very tightly packed tiny shops selling basic stuff. Not impressed and there were too many people so couldn't take good photographs anyway. But the trip was good and these photographs are for the trip to the market, the town itself and the trip back.

 

I had a choice of either taking the local bus or picking up a taxi from the hotel. The bus would have cost 25 rupees while the taxi cost 1500 rupees. Guess what I took like an idiot? sighs. Anyway. The taxi driver that I got was pretty good, very helpful in giving me directions. But what scared the heck out of me was what he had got stuck on his dashboard. Why does he feel the need to have 3 Hindu gods and goddesses looking over his speedometer, his tachymeter and temperature gauge? Very worrying.

The weather was perfect, the drive was brilliant. We were going towards that mountain in the far distance.

Passed by these jagged mountains on the way

pretty impressive, eh?

 

The town where I was headed to was on the right of that cliff on the right. On the right, here’s the sheer cliff. Looks like somebody has taken a giant axe to the mountain, no?

Jugnauth Road on the left.

 

I asked the taxi driver to stop at the local temple. And it was one of the cosmopolitan temples which are so common in Diaspora locations. Unlike India where there is sufficient demand that one can have dedicated temples to just one deity, you will need to have a Deity Mall, so to say, to appeal to a small population which worships a whole bunch of different gods.

 
 
 

There were about 20 odd small temples arranged around one large temple, all under one roof. And you would normally go in front of the temple, pay your respects and pray and then move off. Many go around and worship all the deities religiously. I have seen that here in London as well, perhaps one day I will do a photo essay on that. After me paying my respects and hoping that the gods would have listened to my entreaty about looking after the kids, I pushed off.

Say what? Yelly? I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, that sounds horrible.

I know I am sounding illiterate, but found the juxtaposition of high French with the word Ganga Singh interesting :).

Another temple :)

A watch shop, unfortunately closed.

This was a bit wtf for me. It says, “A Lover” and then what looks like a phone number. Somebody is advertising themselves as a lover? hmmm, very weird, lol.

  

This was another curious piece. A whole bunch of different walls seem to have been painted by the Ministry of Tourism. I can understand them wanting to keep the place looking clean but why on earth would you want to stencil the damn ministry name there? To avoid bill posters?

Mr. P&K Sookhee (presumably a Hindi word, it means somebody who is happy) isnt very happy I guess. The posters on the window said that he was having a closing down sale. Not good. Poor chap and I am not sure that he got the irony or would have appreciated me telling him this.

Bollywood movie posters on a kiosk.

And on the high street, we have Vegas and a casino!

And can KFC be anywhere behind?

I was looking for bookstores which would sell me some books on Mauritius history, culture and stuff like that. So this very kind policeman said that I should nip into the mall. And it was a real life mall, at least 200 big shops, 4 levels. The entrance fronted by Ram Tulsidas :). As i mentioned in my previous essay, the Tulsidas clan in Mauritius seems to be heavy in the fashion industry.

And then it had this Bollywood Cafe inside.

 
With Thali’s!, bloody hell. That was a bit over the top for me. Since when would Bollywood people eat in a thali?

Ah!, now this is more like it. Baboojee Healthy Food, serving chicken burgers, chips, with curry sauce, chicken tikka burgers, special vegetarian meals and the lot. Heh, my kind of vendor, i love his definition of healthy food :). And the lady had lovely hair as well :)

And education is important. This seems to be an affiliated body to the University of Mauritius, educating the good citizens of Mauritius in advanced Computing. Good.



Mootoo (can be read as a Hindu word for Fatso). Well, if you keep on snacking, you will get seriously Mootoo, just look at me.

Damn Marmite is here as well, and I dont care that its deluxe, its disgusting.

Had a fair mind to go complain to the police that they were openly selling Marmite. Disgusting stuff.

More food stalls. Selling Roti Chawl, Dholl puri, juice and cakes :)

Couple of things caught my eye, What’s a Taxi Snack? And why confuse things on the right hand side shop? Private Parking sign just next to No Parking? Make up your damn mind, lol

And then you have Boutique Gajadar selling biscuits and soap.

Another rather interesting combo. A French language sign for a Gujarati restaurant, which seems to specialise in Chinese, Mauritarian and Italian cooking. You cant get any more globalised than that, can you?

Cabbages, absolutely infested with cabbages.

A shop selling Grecian construction columns, lol. As one does.

A rather cute sign advertising massages.

Cheshire Homes which is good but that’s not what caught my eye. What did catch my eye was the road sign. Overhead Irrigation? Those are electricity wires. Just what are these islanders growing that requires electricity to feed them from overhead? heh.

This is supposed to be the Hindu Cremation Ground. Not impressed, it was a drain, choked with rubbish and you are supposed to be cremated into that drain? Not impressed at all.

 

Remember what I said about the fascinating colour choices of the islanders? See this one, bright orange and bright pink. Makes one go, what on earth? How do people manage to live in those places? Permanent sunglasses, I bet :)

Anyway, that’s the end of my photoessays on my trip to Mauritius. Hope you enjoyed it. The full high resolution slide show is here.