Sunday, December 13, 2009

Not Just Jazz by the Bay




Yope…. First time in the ‘history’ of this blog I am writing about something other than travelling…. It’s about my one more passion, i.e. food (yeah, I live for food & not have food to live).
Well… This Sunday we (me, Ankita & Piyush) visited Not Just Jazz by the Bay for our lunch. No, we generally do not spend so much money for lunch every weekend, but this weekend was special for all of us, we all got internship (in fact I’ve already got my 1st salary), so it was celebration time & we decided to treat ourselves in a classy way.
We selected their buffet plan, which include a drink (beer/cocktail/mocktail/iced tea), a soup (veg/non veg), a sandwich, salad bar, pasta bar and dessert. With all these, for beginning they give you bread basket & hummus with Pita breads. The drinks were okey (we took 1 lemon iced tea, 1 peach iced tea & 1 peach flavored mocktail), then we had soup, Ankita & Piyush had Cream of Tomato soup, which was quite thick, for a sec I thought it’s not soup but chowder & I tried Chicken & Potato soup, which was though bland, one could make it tasty by adding some pepper & drops of lemon juice.
Their salad range was quite good, starting from bean sprouts salad to Russian salad to chilly potato to pasta salad (pastas prepared in different kind of sauces) & even sandwiches were good (we tried classic veg, Mediterranean veg and NJ’s lover). I didn’t try pastas but Piyush said it was okey, not so great. And since we have kind of same choices in food, I think even I would not like it.
Now it’s the turn of Desserts… The best part of whole lunch was dessert as usual. Today they had Orange Mousse, Black current Mousse, Mixed Fruit gautex , Fruit Salad(which is cut fruits) and Chocolate Mousse.. I wrote Chocolate mousse in the end just because that was the best chocolate mousse I have ever tried. It was not sweet like other choco. Mousse, but it was a li’l bit bitter. May not everyone like this; especially those who think chocolate should be sweet & not bitter. But fans of dark chocolate would love the taste.
Over all we spent almost 2 hrs there, with just food & talks & photography (yeah I’ve attached the pic of Choco mousse)

(P.S. : ‘m new as food critic, do lemme know how’s it)

Friday, December 4, 2009

City of Nizams : Hyderabad




Well…. I am going to start a li’l kind of history class over here…. :P… As we all know India got her independence in 1947 A.D.,ofcourse with a li’l bit of trouble created by Nawab Mohammad Mahabat Khanji III of Junagadh(under the pressure of his prime minister, Shah Nawaz Bhutto) & Nizaam of Hyderabad… and we also know how Sardar Patel negotiated with them and ‘convinced’ them not to join Pakistan…
Well, History class is over now & now it’s time to go for a trip to that very Hyderabad… Hyderabad is NOW divided into three sub-cities-which fondly called “triplet” city: Hyderabad, Secundrabad and CYBERABAD….But today we’ll talk about just historical part of this city….
Though there are many places that have quite important role in Indian History, I would like to mention 3 major places, i.e. Golconda Fort, Salarjang Museum & Chomahala palace.


Golconda Fort:
In the 16th century, Golconda was the capital and fortress city of the Qutb Shahi kingdom, near Hyderabad. According to a legend, the fort derives its name from Golla Konda, which is a Telugu word for Shepherd's Hill. It is believed that a shepherd boy came across an idol on the hill. This led to the construction of a mud fort by the then Kakatiya dynasty ruler of the kingdom around the site….
Well I’m not going too dip in the architecture & stories for about this fort, for that check out the “Sound & Light” show (in English ofcourse), the commentary is given by the great BigB, so don’t forget to check it out…. :D

Salarjang Museum:
Salarjung Museum is an art museum & might be the largest collection of artistic things by one single person. The whole collection is divided in more than 25 rooms, 2 floors (i.e. ground floor + 2 floors) & collection from all around the world… Must check out all the floors, may be u might get bored with usual stuff of ground floor,but then also go to first & second floor, otherwise u’ll miss the chance to see the collection on Salarjang ( it was a post in Hyderabad during Nizam’s rule)

Chowmahla Palace:
Chowmahalla Palace was a palace belonging to the Nizams of Hyderabad state. All ceremonial functions including the accession of the Nizams and receptions for the Governor-General were held at this palace.
Well, about the grandeur of this place, just check out the pics attached….