Of Croma and materialistic pleasures..

I have always loved Croma, but hadn't gone to any of their stores in Bangalore yet. Today I did. And the place impressed me all over again - literally! Service - perfect. Associates - perfect. Merchandising - perfect. Stock - perfect. Pricing - perfect perfect perfect! I absolutely love the place, it's good enough to give any other electronic retail chain a run for their money. E Zone and Sony exclusive stores included. But what really gives me a kick is that once upon in time, I had a part to play in how awesome Croma is today.

So a large part of our Sunday was spent... errr.. Spending. And we are now very proud owners of a digital photo album (my anniversary gift - more on this later) and a blu ray disc player. And guess what. I can actually figure out the difference between our old DVD player and this player. Listen up ladies and gentlemen, this is a HUGE step for me! Here's to many more nights spent watching Jack Bauer and Frasier Crane and Shah Rukh Khan and Morgan Freeman in action!

Coming now to the digital photo album. I am surprised at how much I am loving it, considering I am all for paper prints and the traditional way of storing pictures. But this small thing has extendable memory and can store nearly all of our holiday pictures. And videos. And a sexy screen to display it. It's super cool! I am going to have some fun with my little digital album that I can carry around, and no memory will ever be far from me.

Ha! Now if only someone bought me that SLR. And honest to God, I am really hoping this time I will be lucky and R will read this other blog too (and that's asking for a lot, because I am not so sure if he even reads Peaceful Easy Feeling :P)

P.S. R noticed I was blogging, and he wants me to recommend his new player on the blog because he is obviously madly in love with it. So if you are thinking of buying a blu ray disc player any time soon and you don't want to spend too much money (not more than approx 10K) and if you want a player that plays DVD formats too, consider this option - Sony BDB - S370. Edited to add - it plays internet content on Wifi. I have positively never seen anything cooler than this player. And this one comes from me, not R :D

Of old friends, pretentious cafes, and brilliant deals

So after a getting a lot of Burrp mobile alerts for Matteo Coffea on Church Street, I finally went there today. And I did NOT think it was worth the 5/5 it's been getting. Let me make myself clear here... The food is decent, the ambience is decent too... But it's definitely not worth all the raving and ranting. 

So I reached this place a little after 12 and all tables were occupied either by IT folks (they ARE a different category and they are everywhere man!), precocious school kids, hippie firangs, and extremely wannabe.. err.. locals. I got a seat by their pastry shelf and it wasn't exactly comfortable. One of the waitresses came and thrashed down a menu card on the table. She smiled at me AFTER I smiled at her and she almost looked like she didn't like her job. Come on lady, most of us don't! :P

Soon some hippies left and I got a table overlooking the road and the chairs were a lot more comfortable. I didn't notice much after that because soon the friend I was supposed to meet there arrived and I was seeing her a good three years... And what fun it was to catch up. She knows a lot more about my life than even a lot of very, very close friends in my college gang and it was good to talk and bitch and crib and laugh, no holds barred. The high point of my visit to Matteo was the friend and all the conversation and the awesome gift she gave me today, which in a way made me glad because I wouldn't have wanted it any other way... Thanks dear girl, you really made my Saturday! :-)

The food was quite decent - the pasta was to die for and the salad was pretty good too. The iced tea was just about average but I don't blame them. After years of overly sweetened iced tea in the Nescafe counter of my college campus, I can somehow never develop taste for the real iced tea like they serve in the Baristas and Matteos of the world. The service was strictly OK, nothing mindblowing. But then again, today I wasn't out to crib about a restaurant and my day was made already :-) 

Roxie, this one's for you. Like I told you earlier too, this IS one of the best gifts I have got in my entire life. Big bear hug, my dear girl! :-)

After Matteo, R and I went to buy a new phone for him, and here's a little piece of advice for people looking to buy a new phone anytime soon- Go to Just Call, a Nokia priority dealer on Brigade Road. We got a free gift - a range of 2D-3N packages in places like Yercaud, Munnar, and even Goa. And it is valid for a whole year! Like my mom would put it, "aaj kisi achhe insaan ka chehra dekh ke uthi hogi" :D

I rate my Saturday a 5/5 already... And it's not even over yet! :D

Best buys and IPL brand obsession

The best thing about E-Zone, Indiranagar, Bangalore being right next to Unilet, Indiranagar, Bangalore is that E-Zone has a reasonably spacious parking area.:P We started hunting for two of our bigger buys at E-Zone on two different occasions and the terrible service and downright daft CSAs pissed us off both times. Uniltet on the other hand not only helped us buy the best product, but also floored us with their salesmanship. Unilet feels like a little bit of up and about Bombay in the lazy little Bangalore. Which is surprising because Ezone is much more gloss and sheen than Unilet. For whatever it is worth, I recommend Unilet. And I am not setting foot at an E-Zone again, unless I have vouchers of course :P

Btw check out #IPLBrandWhore on Twitter. One of the most hilarious things I have ever read... Close second to Chetan Bhagat's oft quoted starting line, "when I wrote about Godhra riots in my third book". God Mr Bhagat, your book was about ordinary young adults with hyperactive hormones and unreal dreams and passion that comes with youth, not experience. Not riots, for God's sake!

Sunday Bloody Sunday

So last Sunday was probably the worst Sunday we have ever spent doing things we love doing - movies and eating. Here's the long and short of our horrible experience at Forum Value Mall.

We finally saw My Name Is Khan. If at all the whole MNS Vs SRK story was a publicity stunt, I am sure SRK had his reasons for it. Because MNIK... Really? I couldn't believe the man I have loved pretty much ALL my life, not because of his acting skills but his sheer intelligence, agreed to do a movie like this. No no, don't get me wrong. I don't think he belongs to the Aamir Khan genre of intelligent cinema (discounting 3 Idiots of course). He is a star... A businessman if you will. He does what sells and what he does, sells. Even his mindless Om Shanti Om has a fragment of intelligence in the many spoofs. But MNIK is a disaster. For one, it was hilarious, an adjective not quite apt for a theme like that. And what's with SRK turning into Superman and saving people and being dumb at the same time? Why wouldn't a man give his wife a shoulder to cry on instead of travelling across America to meet the President to say one line... My Name Is Khan and I am not a terrorist. What melodrama! I don't understand why Karan Johar tried to squeeze so much into ONE movie. First there's Kajol and SRK together again, which for most of us who grew up on the late 90's hindi movies, is a huge thing already. And then there are tales of wooing, an illness, a Hindu-Musling love story, song and dance, shaadi scenes, NRI "bigness", Kajol's eccentricities and a past, superhero sequences, war victims, AND the sensitive issue of being a Muslim in our day and age. The movie, at best, was a spoof on lot of serious issues.  And not a very intelligent one at that. My rating 2.5/5 - for the comedy and for my eternal love for SRK. I almost stopped loving him. And then this year's Filmfare awards happened... Sigh! ;-)

After the movie, we went to the new MTR outlet in the mall. I was of course super excited because I had heard so much about how this place is a heritage here in Bangalore and how awesome the food is. And how cheap! Cheap it was. But that too came at a cost. My limited patience. We decided to take a table on the terrace and that was our first bad decision. It was HOT. Then we got a table with leftovers from the previous party. Watery, dirty, dusty, sunny, and yellow spots here and there- the table was quite a sight. And nobody came to clean it either, in spite of asking 2 employees. Finally someone did oblige after a lot of buck passing. We were given water and one of the glasses had chutney marks just where you hold it. You got it right, someone had used the glass with the same hand they ate their chutney... And nobody thought of washing those glasses before dumping them on our table. Running out of patience, we asked for the manager. He apologised profusely and we let it go. The food was going to be worth it probably. We were wrong. We ordered 4 masala dosas, R's parents were accompanying us. We ordered 4 dosas, R's parents were accompanying us. We were served 3 dosas. The 4th one was brought in just when the remaining 3 were almost done with their food. And the food was nothing extraordinary. I probably don't have extremely evolved taste buds, what's so great about MTR food really? It tastes as good as anything else in any other slightly more expensive restaurant. And with that kind of service, I don't mind staying away and not recommending this place to anyone. What's funny is that this was the first day of the mall outlet (I guessed because the water jugs had their steel company stickers on, later I confirmed with one of the employees), and although there were no discounts, even their service and attitude made us believe they weren't too excited about a new outlet and a restaurant full of people. The coffee was good. Strong. And one of the better cups of coffee I have ever had. But my rating would still be 1/ 5, 1 for the coffee.

And then realising that we no could no longer take the atrocities of that Sunday, we went to the parking to leave. And the entire length of one side of our car had been scratched. Deliberately. R, being the obsessed lover of everything he owns, lost it and asked the security guy what happened. He seemed to not understand that he was being spoken to. When R asked for his manager, he just grumbled that there was no facility of lodging a complaint and walked off. On our way out, R argued with the outside security that we weren't going to pay for the parking. And we didn't. But those 4 tenners we saved wasn't worth the kind of service we got at Forum Value Mall. I am never setting foot there again, except if I am planning a survey. Because look at the brighter side. It's because of service and experience like this that people like me stay in business.

Sunday bloody Sunday I say!