Zoe RestoCafe
Question: Name a place in Bangalore where you can savor the gamut of Mediterranean food covering Arabic, Algerian, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish and Moroccan cuisines with your family and without going broke? Nope, the answer is NOT a food festival!!
Zoe RestoCafe Mediterranee is the place you need to head out to. Located on 7th Main, Indiranagar (i.e. the road that connects 100ft Road to Cambridge Layout, Ulsoor) Zoe makes a style statement with trendy furniture, lounge music, plush sofas, attentive service and reasonable prices. Not to mention, food that is presented in equally stylish ways.
We started with a mocktail – Ocean’s Blue – a tantalizing drink with the flavor of litchees. Glancing at the menu, we began with a starter – Bruchetta – crostini topped with assorted hummus, babaganoush, mahanaraa, olive tapendade in greek salsa. My partner had the popular Falafel – crispy herbed chickpea served with hummus.
Next, we were in a dilemma to choose from a combination of Salads & Wraps – should we go with the Caprese sandwich consisting of fresh mozzarella, tomato & basil or should we try out the chicken & cheese wrap. Fearing the perils of gluttony, we choose neither. Instead, we opted for the Symphony Salad from their Salads Menu! Crispy mixed lettuce with diced tomato, tri-pepper, asparagus and fresh mozzarella in red parmesan vinegrette greeted us. Boy, was it good or what? *Yummy*. For the main course, we decided to go for the kill. It was Pollo ala fritto parmeziana – juicy and cheesy batter fried chicken accompanied with coleslaw barbecue sauce & fries and Gambronata – grilled prawns flashed with fontina cheese topped on a bed of crispy paprika potatoes and accompanied with tangy lemon butter caper sauce. Contentment showing on our faces, we downed the whole thing with some Tiramisu & Nutty mascaporne crepes.
On our next visit, we ran into Chef Keith Picardo and promised him that we’d try out the smoothies, a dessert coffee or two and definitely, pasta!
Zoe Resto Café Mediterranee is managed by Summit Hospitality Pvt Ltd, the company behind the restaurant. The philosophy behind Zoe Resto Café is to offer a novel experience for foodies and to ensure that Zoe Resto Café is the destination for, as he terms it “…a snack between meals or a meal between snacks.” After having both at the restaurant, we can only nod in complete satisfaction. You will too! Drop in everyday, between 11am to 11 pm!
Bon Appetit! *Burp*
Salem Kitchen, Kamaraj Road near Commercial Street entrance
Located at the first floor of Ashoka Plaza on Kamaraj Road (a stone’s throw away from the Commercial Street entrance, next to the Corporation Bank ATM) Salem Kitchen can serve a combination of food from its menu of over 100 dishes such as Kothu Parotta, Paniyaram, Appam Kurma, Mutton & Chicken Sukka, Dosa Chicken Curry, Parotta Chicken Curry, Chicken Varuval and Chicken Kolambu to South Indian fixtures like Idli, Dosa, Paniyaaram, Appam etc.
Being the foodies we are, we tried out a small range of dishes - both vegetarian & non-vegetarian. We were greeted by a smiling Sridar, one of Salem Kitchen’s partners (the other being Elangovan aka Babu, who was away traveling - you guessed it, to Salem!) who quickly led us to a table. He instructed a waiter to take our order. Our choice of food included short eats such as the Mini Idlis (Rs. 30/-), a Mutton Biryani(Rs 90/-) and Chicken Sukka. We also drooled over a very tempting Chicken Biryani with Kolambu as it wafted its way to an adjoining table.
The Chicken Sukka consisted of about 6-7 pieces, had marinated itself perfectly in pepper masala was served hot with coriander garnishing. It was hot and spicy and a delight whose memories will linger and linger. We had to compliment Sridhar who accepted it gracefully.
To settle down the whole thing, Sridhar asked us to sample his restaurant’s Rasam. It arrived in small steel bowls. With just the right level of watery-ness, laced with diced & boiled tomato rinds, tamarind, ground pepper seeds, coriander with a smattering of garlic, man, it was like manna from heaven!
Promising Sridar that we’d revisit the place to sample Ceylon Parotta with Brain Fry, Idiyappam with Chicken Varuval next time, we left, very satisfied with the food.
Caperberry
The job has its perks. Sometimes they involve eating items like shown below.
In case you are wondering what it is - its Indian Salmon with Tomato Rasin, leeks and garlic foam. 
Only at Caperberry, the new European restaurant in town.
Sweet Summer Days
Once upon a time, we all used to love sugar cane juice. We’d run up to the ‘ganne walla’, wait for an eternity as he turned the wheel and slowly but surely, the glass would fill up on the other end. Ahh, what pleasure it was to drink that on a hot summer afternoon…Then we grew up and stopped drinking it because we go to know how unhygienic it was, and what a health hazard it was. So while we all panged to get a taste of it, it was banished from the kingdom.
Well, sugar cane juice is back. Now available in clean (some place air-conditioned too!) outlets, dispensed via state of the art machines (with GPS to boot), these outlets bring the fun back in to drinking fresh sugar cane juice. With multiple flavors too – pick from lemon, ginger, pineapple, chilli, mint, chat masala and more. One place that offers all this is Cane Fresh.
Started by Aravind and Senthil, to address their own personal craving for quality sugar cane juice in the summers, they decided to build a machine that would vend ultra-hygienic sugar cane juice. “That’s how we started the business and started thinking about various business models and finally settled for franchising the business. We didn’t want to sell the machines outright for one simple reason which is we cannot control the quality of the juice which will defeat the purpose of starting this business.”, says one of the founders. We asked him some more questions:
[MCB] Most of us feel that Sugar cane juice is unhealthy – fact or myth?
[Senthil] It is extremely unhealthy if it is made in a unhygienic way (like the road side vendors where the flies sit in everything), could cause diarrhea.
When made hygienic it is in fact very healthy and could act as an energy drink and hydrating drink. Very good especially for hot weather conditions.
[MCB] The technology behind this seems interesting – for example, how is GSM technology being used to reduce pilferage? How long can it be run non-stop? What is the cleaning process?
[Senthil] The machine sends us a message at least 2 times a day (opening reading and closing reading) so we know how many juices were sold on that day. Also the machine vends the exact amount of juice every time. So it clearly avoids the pilferage. It can run 24/7 nonstop. It is stress tested and has a record of vending 1600+ juice in a day. The machine is indigenously and developed in India by Aravind and we have an International patent for this technology.
Every day evening, the machine gets cleaned “deep” which means we use liquid de-scalar to ensure there no scales that form in the tubes in which juice flows. Besides we remove the removable rollers and clean them to ensure there is no stickiness in the machine. In the morning the operator just flushes the tubes to ensure there are no dusts and starts making the juice. If the machine is idle for 15 mins, then before making the juice, the machine will flush the tubes to ensure there are no stale juice left in the tubes. So you are guaranteed that you get fresh juice each and every single time.
[MCB] What makes CF standout from the competition?
[Senthil] Superior quality of juice (Chilled without ice), technology and “franchisable” business model and affordable for small & medium investors to start a business. Lots of folks who are employed and looking for a small business opportunity, we are ideal candidate for them as we operate it for them so they don’t need to be managing the day to day operations besides that we have a solid fool proof system which they could trust.
[MCB] Can you provide a ‘rough’ estimate around the cost of setting up a franchise of CF? Can I set it up in any location in India?
We have 2 different models. Kiosk based outlet which could be set up inside a mall, in the food courts or in the pavements of grocery stores etc. This would cost somewhere around 3.25 lakhs (approx). Exclusive outlets like the one in Cambridge layout will cost a bit more to do the interiors & rental advance which varies from place to place. The advantage of this model is we are planning to bring new products to the market which will be additional revenue generator
Thirsty yet? Head over here and gulp down a glass or two! And leave a note or two with your comments.
Video Guides on MCB
Finally, videos on MCB are here. It took some fiddling around with various options (youtube, flash player, progressive flash player, shockwave, video editing software, music generation, the works). Finally, this is the recipe that worked the best.
For video editing -> Nothing beats Pinnacle Studio. Very simple interface, yet loaded with features when you need them. The thing freezes on me at times, but the auto-save option ensures that i dont lose any work. I started off with version 9, but upgraded to 12 because of…
The need for background score. Version 9 does not have the option to generate background music automatically. Not unless you pay some exhorbitant amount to SmartSounds. Luckily Pinnacle Studio version 12 has got score generation built in. Which worked like a breeze. Music and video all together spun out into a mpeg-2 format. The next step was…
Making the video web-ready. Flash is the most popular format on the net, and while pinnacle has an option to directly output to flash, Sothink Video Encoder for Flash does a much better job. It also creates the output video in a manner that the video downloads progressively as viewers play the video. No more waiting for the entire thing to download before playing. Even 5MB FLV files seemed to play just fine on a regular DSL line.
Finally, posting it on the web. The beautiful thing is that the actual HTML code is not that ugly at all. And not a whole lot if it either. Its all written down here.
So there it is. Nice and easy. Here are some of the places on MCB with videos…
Gowribidanur Visit
Here’s our first post on places in and around Bangalore that you could take off to if you have a complete day at your disposal.
Gowribidanur, a small town, about 100 km. from Bangalore, past Doddballapur, is well known on two counts. One for being a place where the ‘Second Jallianwallah Bagh’ type shooting took place. Two, for a temple that is steeped in mythology. Apparently, it also has an earthquake monitoring facility but we didn’t feel no tremors during our visit, so can’t confirm that to you folks. :)
Ok, for the serious bit now.
On April 25, 1939 or thereabouts, about 9 - 10 people were fired upon and killed during a peaceful Jathre ( village fair ). Apparently, there was a demonstration by Satyagrahis who demanded lowering the British flag and hoisting one of Bharat Mata. Furious that such an event could even be contemplated, officers from a police station nearby rushed in and opened fire killing 9 people, innocents included. Check out the photos for a memorial honouring the martyrs.
Mythology, as the temple here - Vidhura Aswathnarayana temple - was consecrated and blessed by none other than Krishna after the Mahabharat war. Apparently, the court advisor, Vidhura, apprehending the terrible consequences of a war between the Pandavas and their cousins the Kauravas, was advised to leave the kingdom by Krishna. The latter was of the opinion that it was Dharmic war and hence its necessity. Vidhura, dejected, leaves the kingdom and comes to South India for solace and meditation. Finding himself at the ashram of Maitreyi Maharishi on the banks of the Pinakini River, he resides there. Later, after the war, Krishna in disguise appears at the Ashram and advises Sage Maitreyi to plant a tree in honour of Vidhura. This tree, now gnarled, bent, withered and supported by a wall is supposed to be life giving. Hence, childless couples or those facing difficulties finding a lifepartner, come to worship the Aswathnarayana temple sorrounding the tree. On having their wishes fulfilled, they leave behind a set of three Nagakals for having their ‘naga dosha’ removed.
So goes the above stories told to us (& listened to with rapt attention, needless to add!) by a teacher at the Satyagraha High School, nearby the temple.
October Newsletter
This month’s newsletter was about kicking some butt, from our good friend - Venkat.
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Crossword Book Sale
Be there…before you get there
A 3D panorama is a great way to an idea of how the place is going to be like…without having to fight the traffic and the honking and the pollution. MCB now introduces full panoramic views for its premium businesses. Take a look at The Ants and Modern World shops.
Cool, huh?!
MyCityBuddy advertisement on CityPlus
MyCityBuddy carried out its first public advertisement campaign on a new and upcoming local newspaper called city plus. There will be more to come, but here’s three cheers to the first one!