Category: Personal Stuff

Ha, no Indian food update today (see Saturday’s update for that). Yesterday, Josh, Renat, Annd (Renat’s wife), and Aimee (my wife) got together for brunch/lunch at Veggie Planet in Harvard Square. What a fantastic place to eat. I mean really, the food is absolutely delish. Renat and my wife had the Brunch for Henry pizza. Anna and I each had the Homefry Tofu Scramble, and Josh had the Omelet of the Day. One word: yummy. I’ve never seen squash on a pizza, but I had a bite of it, and wow.

I can’t say enough good things about the place. If you’re in, at or near Harvard Square, go there, you won’t regret it.

On a related note, the Lumpaus are both vegetarian. My wife and I have had a mainly vegan diet for the past two weeks. We did go and have some barbecue on Friday (coz we were in the mood for Dosas, but the only nearby place is Masalaa and that pissed me off royally, so we detoured). I’ll tell you this: it felt weird eating meat. Really weird. After only two weeks. Yeah, we’ve had sushi in those two weeks: we try to get that at least once a week. But having a bbq’d chicken is just strange now. We’ll see how long this lasts, but we’re both really enjoying the vegetarian thing. Oh yeah, I’m mixing them because we did have some feta cheese on a homemade greek pizza (using dough from the fridged section at Trader Joe’s. And she has milk milk. I personally have soy milk and soy yoghurts and all that. It’s fun so far, and soooooo yummy. And I’m losing the weight. Soon I won’t be a round (hopefully). But I’ll talk about Billy Blanks in a future posting.

Update: Renat is married, folks. And his last name is with a u.

For those of you following along to this mini-series, we went to Udupi Bhavan in Lowell, MA (about 30 minutes from where we live). The sign outside just says Indian Grill so it’s easy to miss if you don’t know what you’re looking for (we didn’t, but we were too hungry to argue about it). The summary: it’s North Indian, but not an EveryOther ™. Oh yes, Punjabi food and even some non-veg (which we didn’t try), but not your stereotypical menu at all. Black channa, tinda (squash), paneer curry, two kinds of raita, tw kinds of rice, and a naan (brought hot and steaming to your table) were among the dishes we preferred there.

So while it did not satiate the dosa craving, it definitely was off the beaten path, out of stereotype, and it’s not actually called Udupi Bhavan (whose name had me expecting South Indian).

I’ll put it at #3 (after Punjabi Dhaba), only for the distance. Oh yeah, price of the buffet? $7.50. Cha-ching!

So, we have completely abandoned Masalaa Boston. We’ve not gone back since that first horrifying day, though I did call them this weekend to confirm what the status was. They have, apparently, reintroduced the three different dosas. The price remains decidedly unfriendly at 11.50 or so.

Now the good news. We found out about two different places. We decided to try the farther one first” Chennai Woodlands. And man, oh, man, does that place rock the house. First off, it’s not in Boston. It’s not even near Boston. It’s in a town called Ashland, which is apparently that side of Framingham, which is halfway to Worcester (hey spanky). It’s in a run down looking strip mall, with a very unassuming store front. And when you step inside the door: the aroma!

This was worth every millisecond of the 45 minute drive down there. They are exclusively vegetarian, and they have a fantastic variety that even puts the old Masalaa to shame. The idlis, the dosas, the channa, the veg curry. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmy. So yes, 4 thumbs up (2 each from Aimee and me) for them. If you’re in the neighbourhood, go there. If you’re not in the neighbourhood, then go to the neighbourhood and see the previous sentence.

It’s too far to make it a weekly jaunt, but we’re going to try this place up in Lowell next week. I’ll let you know how it goes.

My wife and I have been in Boston now for about 16 months. In all that time, we’ve tried several Indian restaurants about the place. While we haven’t gone out to Worcester, where we’ve heard of some good places, we’ve seen quite a few in the Boston metro and surrounding areas.

Now, here’s the thing. Most Indian restaraunts are just like every other Indian restaurant. You’ll get your chicken tikka masala at a lunch buffet, etc etc, yada yada, nothing exciting. You might feel trendy, though.

The first place we went to was one of those every-other places in Porter Square. Average food, average prices. The next one is some place in Harvard. Now the food wasn’t great, but the atmosphere is great if you’re a pretentious yuppy trendsetter/Harvard person.

Right across the street from where I used to work (I still work for the same employer, but we’re now located in a different city), was the Ambassador, another every-other place. No links for those, by the way, because they’re just not worth recommending.

Two weeks ago we went down to party-happy Waltham and tried out Mother India. Wow. You pay more for less quality.

As you can see, it’s frustrating. There are three two above average places left here:

The third place entry is a bit of a surprise: it’s mall food! You read me right. For a long time there, the best place for Indian food that we knew of and tried was in the food court in Burlington Mall. It’s very every-other like, except for a few things you can get that you might not think about. Their South Indian food is below average, but their dahl is pretty good.

The second place entry is Punjabi Dhaba in Inman Square (google that, because I can’t link to citysearch for some reason). We found this place by accident one day, when we went shopping for car insurance. Amazing food. This reminds me of home. It reminds me of my mother’s cooking. It’s a no-nonsense no-frills place. They don’t waste time with servers and bussers and hosts/hostesses and table cloths. You go up to the counter, order what you want and they call out your number. You go back to the counter, pick up a metal tray filled with goodies. I have two reasons for it being in second place:

1. while I am Punjabi and dig Punjabi food, I like to eat South Indian food when I’m out
2. their food is all fattening (but soooooooo damned good, and healthier than your fast food joints

The first place entry sucks. I mean it absolutely blows dogs. Let’s put it this way: the incarnation of this restaurant as of 2 weeks ago is in first place. The way it is now, and has been for a week and a half: well, it is now an every-other. Here’s the deal with this place:it used to be a South Indian vegetarian restaurant. They had great lunch buffets (8.95 on the weekdays 9.95 on the weekends), with yummy vegetarian delights. And you got a choice of dosas with your buffet (plain, masala or mysore masala). Hands down the best dosai I’ve had in Massachusetts. The servers were a little gruff at times, but man, when they knew what you liked, you got what you liked. They always had a table ready for us (at the usual spot no less), and they always knew how we liked our dosas, and how we take our coffee.
Heck, most of the Boston Conspiracy ate there with us and had a great time (and want to do it again).

So, how did the mighty fall? Well, 2 weeks ago they announced that they’re introducing “meat dishes.” Now, I’m a little bothered by it, and I told the servers that when they asked. But last Saturday, my gosh. We walked in and lo and behold — 4 veg. entrees are just gone from the buffet to be replaced by, yep: chicken tikka masala, some lamb dish and another chicken dish (which sounded vaguely South Indian). No we’re down to two veg. entrees, and sambar. Gone are the mushroom curries, the mixed veg, the dahl and the channa.
That was change #1.

Change #2: new cook. Oh yes. I can tell: the new cook is not a South Indian cook, but a nothern Indian cook. This new cook works in a South Indian restaurant and cooks South Indian food like a notherner would. I’m not being bigoted about it: I’m sorry, but I can tell the difference when the food is cooked by someone natively (or at least near natively) or not. In short: the sambar is not worth the mention I just gave it in this sentence. The dosa? Yeah, you can get masala. That’s it. No plain, no mysore, you get masala. Must be too challenging.

Change #3: our regular server is gone. The guy who was most visible wasn’t even there. I don’t know if he left or if he’s just out sick. But it was a little unsettling. Gone with him are the steel glasses you get your water in.

Change #4: the prices. They jumped by 2 dollars. That completed the transformation from: connoisseur’s veg place to every-other-indian-restaurant: high prices for mediocre (at best) food.

And that’s that, there is no #1 Indian restaurant in the Boston area any more. Unless Masalaa Boston rehires the former chef or at least hires a proper South Indian chef, brings the server back, and gets rid of the meat dishes (or at least relegates them to a separate area without compromising the variety of veg. dishes), we’re not going to bother going back there. Our Saturday lunches will have to be taken elsewhere, and it saddens me. At least we enjoyed 4 months of Saturday lunch bliss, and the memory will stay.

Brilliant stuff!. Meanwhile, I’m glad to have touched base with an old friend (this is my Rach shoutout), and looking for another friend. Has anyone seen Brandy Westcott about? If so, say hi from me 🙂

In other news, the whole doc->pdf thing is not going as well as I’d like. I’m going to hack together a solution this week and post that.

Yeah, ok I’m missing the blog entries for my trip to Bangalore’s foss.in event. I promise to do that soon. In the meantime, I just read that Doug Flutie did some sorta drop kick which is great and kudos to him (as soon as I figure out what exactly a drop-kick is). I always thought it was some sorta wrestling thing. Anyway, the bit that dropped my jaw was this: Flutie is with the Patriots. When did that happen? More importantly, why is he following me around?

Seriously though. Flutie was quarterback for the Bills for a while. He joined them while I was in Rochester, NY (the town considers the Buffalo Bills to be the local team). He then went to play for San Diego the same year I went to Los Angeles to work. As you know (don’t yo?) LA doesn’t have a team, so once again, Flutie was in the next major city over (yeah, it’s a stretch to call either Rochester or Buffalo a major city, but they’re both about the same size city in that region of New York). Now, I’ve been in the Boston area for almost a year, and he joined the “local” team in March, a few months after I arrived.

Is my fate somehow tied to this Doug Flutie? And if this is his last year playing football, what does that mean for me?

OK, enough coincidences, I’m off to bed.

Because they would do the same things as their counterparts on the right. Yep, they’d even sell their souls for the right price. Honestly, what do you do in a situation like this?

Here’s a guy (Brian’s ex-friend) who claims to be anti-establishment and wanting others to tell the truth, but he is unwilling and completely unable to do exactly that his own self. He can’t even write as himself (follow the links in Brian’s post, I’m not giving the faker any direct publicity, sorry). It’s exactly the sort of behaviour that Pete rants on about and then turns around and does. Which makes him what? A money-grubbing hypocrite in my book. It’s apparently not about the truth. It’s about advertising. And you know what else? It gives him as much credibility as the idiot commenters.

Now, back when I was in school, I’d read a a couple of Sue Townsend’s books. The unique thing was that those books are written like diaries or journal entries. While I don’t think that there’s anything inherently wrong with the first person perspective in a novel, it has to be done right, which is exactly not the way that at least one author I’ve read does it.

But, Cheeseburger Brown certainly does it right. Not only in his fiction, but also in his own journal entries, which come off like a story and suck you in (how voyeuristic of me), but also, and mainly in his new jourvel (how else would you combine novel and journal? oh, I guess you can call it blognovel, like CBB does), Simon of Space. Now, here is a piece of writing, an unfolding story, a live journal, that I’m hopelessly addicted to.

So, there’s a knock at the door, and your 7 year old child answers the door to be greeted by two finely dressed gentlement carrying a leaflet. So, when you come to the door to see who your young innocent is talking to, you chase them away in anger. They drop a pamphlet as they run (like girls) away.

And the title of the pamphlet? “Discover Your True Gay Nature”, and it talks about how great the gay lifestyle is, and shouldn’t they consider it now, while they are young.

Yeah, didn’t think so. I dare you, I defy you, I almost beg of you to find me ONE FUCKING example of ” the children who are being zealously evangelized by radical homosexuals.” Please somebody. What kind of delusions is the moral right coming under these days? Don’t even get me started about that stone thing, which seems to be completely forgotten.

So, this weekend we hadn’t actually planned on going to see Episode III. We had, instead, planned on going to Charlestown and Faneuil Hall and stuff. Then the weather happened: it poured and oozed heat/moisture. Really uncomfortable stuff! As it turns out, three of us hated the weather, one of us did not. So the one who did not relented and we all went somewhere air conditioned: the theatre.

As fate would have it, I’d been reading Darth Vader’s Blog all week, so the timing was pretty perfect. Let me tell you, Cheeseburger/MFDH (the Darth Side’s author) has it right. He knows how a tale is to be weaved. And he reminded me of how much I loved Star Wars as a kid. And he did almost exactly the way that Episode 1 did not. Episode 1, in fact, made me avoid Episode 2. Moral, George Lucas is still a fucking hack, but Episode III was really good. I don’t know — maybe it was the darkness (relatively speaking) of the movie with respect to The Phantom Episode — kinda like how Empire was the best of the first 3 (and Jedi arguably the worst — gimme Pigs in Space if you want to give me muppets). Or, maybe it was the fact that now, finally, no more Star Wars movies! That’s a relief in itself, because we can collectively move on.

Hmm, no I’m not negative about it. Episode III definitely had a lot of moments. Some that I liked were:

• Padme’s comment during Palpatine’s congressional speech — where she comments on liberty being lost to the sound of thunderous applause
• yoda — so that is what all you all have been talking about in Episode II
• Chewy
• The 1 second of Millenium Falcon earlier on in the movie

Things I didn’t get (or at least, things which don’t really connect to the first trilogy):

• Wherefore art thou, Han Solo?
• How did Chewy and Han Solo hook up and become partners?
• Actually, that’s all I can think of

Acting wise, Ewan MacGregor was great. I like him, and he did well in this movie. The kid who plays Anakin: can’t act. That’s not so bad I guess, coz the kid who played Luke couldn’t act either.

So that’s about it, for now. Epi 3, all in all, was not a bad movie at all.