China Garden

Rest : China Garden
Meal : Dinner
Loc : Om Chamber, Kemps Corner

Back at China Garden after a long time (previous visit here)We walked in on a week night, around 8.30ish and the place was filled with capacity.

Few restaurants are the part of cuisine in Bombay like China Garden, one of the old guard, though they were down for a while they were never really out. A large part of my eating out memories CG will always be a special place.

Not the original Indian-Chinese joint but definitely the most popular and well known.

One of my fav things about their menu is how it looks like a proper Chinese restaurant menu..the yellow paper with red printing, too large, separate sections according to meat.

the space itself is well laid out and fairly wide spread, and even when packed to the gills, dim lighting and decent spacing means you can get yourself some privacy if needs be. CG has never really looked overtly Chinese or Indian, everytime i am there i feel like i am in another country.


Food is a delicious yet unapologetic mix of Indian with Chinese. We started with some onion pancakes which were awesome as well as some kung pao paneer which was also pretty awesome if a little spicy. We got half portions as their regular portions are HUGE.

i cant remember what we went for but i think they were veggies in a hot n sour sauce of some kind. good stuff. perfectly Indo-Chinese.

Was forced into the regular fried rice because the wife for some ridiculous reason would not agree to burnt garlic fried rice. the things we do for love.. sigh. (although it was not bad at all it was just not the burnt garlic)

The singapore noodles were awesome. add some vinegar to this and savour the goodness that is Indo-Chinese... perfect.

Overall, China Garden is probably the best Indian-Chinese restaurant in the city. I have been there often as a child and less as an adult as Chinese plays havoc with my stomach. Once in a while though, we are drawn to it like moths to the flame.

If you have guests over and want to show them how we have adapted and bettered good ol Chinese cooking.. take them here.

Food : 8/10
Service : 8/10
Damage : 1800 without drinks

Indian Government to try and control Internet publishing

As a part of the rules being finalized to supplement India’s Information Technology Amendment Act 2008, rules are being included that will indirectly allow the Indian government to control content being published on the Internet.

This is the new nugget of wisdom proposed by bureaucrats hiding in a heated room to escape the Delhi cold. With nothing else to do, these half witted bureaucrats have decided to take on the Internet with full support from their even more dim witted political overlords.

Detailed information is contained in this post at Medianama. To paraphrase the new bill - It will shut down a website (blog, site, social network) if it -

- violates copyright.
- blasphemy
- obscenity
- threatens sovereignty
- whistle blowing

The people creating this new bill are extremely intelligent, not intelligent enough to catch and prosecute the folks raping and pillaing this country through their well designed and elaborate scams. However they are fairly intelligent in creating a device to prosecute anyone that points a finger at anyone doing the raping and pillaging.

A government, any government that has to hide its own corruption and criminal activity must suppress, prosecute and then silence. First they suppress the means of communication, then they prosecute those who continue to contravene the dictat. They strangle the freedom of speech and the ability of the people to raise questions which might be uncomfortable.

Like all such regulations the wording is kept as vague as possible to allow them to cover as much ground as possible so that they can count on the vagaries of language and procedure to silence someone.

The attempt to control what is published and what is deemed offensive is a planned step towards removing accountability from governmental equations and giving them free reign to become a tyranny. They push the envelope, the people dont resist so they continue to push even more.

This regulation is the second step. We already have a censor board for films which has not been disbanded. In the best traditions of the Gestapo its only a matter of time before they come to our houses in the dead of night and then take us.

It is begining. They will give us a little progress and in return take our freedom, one by one, bit by bit. They will use arguments of patriotism, national security and our great culture, to shut up anyone who has a contrary viewpoint.

So its really up to us, to get out of our funk, to leave our cricket team be and pay a little attention to this little sideshow. The robber barons of government are afraid that the people in India will wake up like they have in Egypt and Libya and their little charade will be over.

To quote Alan Moore, People shouldnt be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of the people.

Jus so these bureaucrats know and understand.. fat fucking chance you have of regulating the internet without having a million people walk into your living room.

Go on. Try It.


To be very clear, when i say government i mean all political parties, The Congress, The UPA, The BJP all of them. Leanings aside, they are all just as corrupt inside.

These views are my own and do not reflect those of Blogger, Medianama & Wikipedia. Just in case the government wishes to shut everyone down using this is an excuse :)

Canvas

Rest : Canvas
Meal : Dinner
Loc : Palladium, Phoenix Mills

Canvas is a relatively new restaurant that has opened in the busy High Street Phoenix Mills area. I was invited to attend the opening night festivities but was busy with my kid brothers wedding.

So decided to jaunt on down and see for myself what the place was all about.

Canvas has been launched by the folks who brought the Comedy Store to Bombay, the restaurant had been in the works for quite some time and should appeal to folks going into or coming out of the shows at the comedy store.

The space is split leveled with a Tapas bar on the bottom and the dining on the upper level. Designed like a boudoir with red lighting and spaced out seating, the look and feel is very loungish.


We started with an amuse bouche of cheddar tomato and basil leaf, onion bread i think and oddly a shot of tomato juice and cucumber with a sort o tzatziki. while we could share two easily, the other two items were much harder to share and made less sense to even have on the table.

Strawberry margarita was excellent. just the right amount of sourness.

my canvas mary was a great idea on paper with fresh tomato juice and peppers, unfortunatley there was a very strong after taste of fennel whcih ruined the drink. they were nice enought to replace with a traditional bloody mary. the second one was not bad but required constant stirring.

The bread basket was okay, the breadsticks were soggy, possibly reheated, one or two of the selections were okay.

Sushi platter was horrible. This isnt a dish one can make and keep for a bit and then present when needs be. the time between production and consumption had robbed the whole thing of any taste whatsoever.

salad was too creamy, not memorable.

the goat cheese appetizer was great, really tasty, hated having to share it.

Red Curry with Jasmine Rice, very average.

The dessert was a sorbet with a capuccino thingy i think. the actual dessert was average, the sorbet was completely off, hard and sour, the little chocolate thingies were unbreakable.

Overall, the space is well laid out and should be able to attract people due to its proximity to the comedy store. However, i am not sure if it will become quite the dining outlet as the food is poor.

The menu was described as Europe meets Asia, which sounds banal if anything. Instead of seeking inpspiration or fusing the two cuisines, they have neatly divvied up dishes to fall into each category which shows a complete lack of imagination.

Their selection of dishes is only slightly wider than that of a five star coffee shop. I can understand that they are trying to appeal to the wide array of tastes with such an ecletic mix of dishes but not finding their own voice means they will not appeal to anyone really.

Freshness goes a long way especially something like sushi will not stand up to being prepped or being kept ready much in advance.

Some cardinal mistakes here, hope they fix it soon as its still early days and some issues initially are forgivable.

The service was friendly, informed and willing to go the extra mile.

Food : 5
Service : 8
Damage : About 3000 for 2 with a drink each.