Restaurants and Hotels in Bangalore - My Reviews

You can find reviews about restaurants close to your area in the popular forums like http://www.zomato.com/

Here, I put my experiences with Bangalore restaurants.


1.) Aagamam Veg Restaurant (Just opposite to Indira Nagar Metro Station)

Address:

3rd Floor, No - 545, C.M.H Road, Near Metro Station, Indiranagar IInd Stage, Bangalore
Timing: 12:00 noon to 3:00 pm Phone: 9742346664, 080-40956662

 Offer:
      Snapdeal offer : (Rs. 40 to avail a Buy-1-Get-1 offer on veg lunch buffet)

 Review:
      We, group of 8 people went on May 31, 2013 (Friday) for Veg buffet lunch.  The final bill without any hidden costs comes around Rs. 150 per person !.  They greeted us with the butter milk.  Then, they gave Tomato shorba soup which was not good.  After complaining to their manager, they replaced it with the babycorn soup which was good.  Then, we had Salads, Starters, Rotis, Rice items and Desserts.  The quality, quantity, taste, service, ambience, number of items all are good.  Kids can enjoy the metro train view as this restaurant is located just opposite to the Indira nagar metrostation.  I was thoroughly satisfied with this place.  It is really a steal offer ! enjoy.

Rating : 5 / 5

2.) Tamil Hotels in Madiwala :

There are 4 good Tamilnadu style hotels in Madiwala.


1.) Karaikudi Mess. - My Rating 4 / 5.
This is a lesser known Mess in that area. 
It is behind Gangothri hotel.

Taste             :  5 / 5
Atmosphere  :  3 / 5
Budget          :  4.5 / 5

2.) Surya Hotel - My Rating 4 / 5

This is a small hotel and always busy.

Taste             :  4 / 5
Atmosphere  :  3 / 5
Budget          :  4 / 5

3.) Hotel Pongal - My Rating 4 / 5

Taste             :  4 / 5
Atmosphere  :  4 / 5
Budget          :  3.5 / 5
 
4.) Madurai Vinayagar Hotel - My Rating 3.5 / 5

Taste             :  3.5 / 5
Atmosphere  :  4 / 5
Budget          :  3.5 / 5

All these three hotels are in the Maruthi Nagar Main Road in close proximity.
If you go from St. Johns Hospital (Hosur Road) to Udupi Garden (Inner Ring Road), You will go via Maruthi Nagar.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                          Outer Ring Road
----------------------------------------------               ---------------------------------------------------------------

                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                    +--------------------+         |  
                                    v                     |      |          | 
                                Karaikudi Mess |     |          |
                           ------------------------+               +------------------------------------------
                                                              Gangothri
                                                                 Circle            ===> Towards Udupi Garden
                           ------------------------+                +-------------------------------------------

                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |      |         |
                                                            |      |         |
                                                            |     v         |    Pongal Hotel
                                       Surya           |   Maruthi|
                                       Hotel            |   Nagar   |
                                                            |  Main Rd|
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                   Vinayaka         |                |
                                    Hotel               |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
                                                            |                |
 Madivala Ayyappa                           |               |
Temple                                                |               |               
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                          Hosur Road
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                                                             St John Hospital 
                                                                                                                       Signal

India's Mobile Price Comparision Websites

Do you want to search mobile prices across leading online stores in India ?

I see this facility in Sulekha.com, 91mobiles and in mysmartprice.com.

http://mobiles.sulekha.com/nokia_asha-205_compare_prices.htm

http://www.91mobiles.com/compare/Celkon/A95/vs/Samsung/Galaxy+Y+Duos.html

http://www.mysmartprice.com/mobile/nokia-asha-205-msp2396


Enjoy.

Once I bought cheaper 'spice' mobile phone for Rs. 1200.  It has hell lot of features for this small amount.  But it emanates lot of heat if I talk continuously for 15 minutes.  This problem was not seen with my older Nokia 6030 Express music phone.  So, I stopped using the cheaper phones.

So, check the SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) of your new phone before buying it. More the SAR value, more the radiation you would feel.  So, choose the low SAR value phone. 

Nokia phone SAR values can be found here,

http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/people-and-planet/emf-health/sar/sar-information/

Must Have Firefox Add-ons

Firefox is my favorite browser.
Here, I listed my favorite Firefox Add-ons.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/sarpalan/favorites/?page=1

These are the MUST have Add-ons for any Firefox user.

1.) Downloading 

• Easy YouTube Video Downloader    - To download video from youtube.
• Download Now                                - Quick download
• DownThemAll!                                  - Awesome quick downloader !
• FlashGot                                           - To download all videos in a webpage.
• Download Statusbar                          - Mini download status bar.
• FireFTP                                            - Nice FTP (File Transfer Protocol) interface in browser.

2.) Dictionary lookup

    Answers                                                 - (Alt + double click on any word in a webpage)
                                                                      to see the word's definition.  Very Good one.


3.) To take notes and to manage information (productivity)

•    Evernote Web Clipper                            - To take notes from webpage and store it in Evernote.
•    Zotero                                                    - To organise files
•    Grocery List Generator                           - To prepare a grocery list.

4.) Privacy, Security, Blocking Ads

•     Adblock Plus                                         - To block ads.
•     Collusion                                               - To see the active cookies in a diagram. nice !

5.) Bookmarks and Password 
 

•     Xmarks Sync                                        - To backup your bookmarks and password.
•     Go Parent Folder                                  - To see where bookmark is stored in the folder hierarchy.
•     Show Parent Folder                              - To see where bookmark is stored in the folder hierarchy.

6.) Browser & Internet Related Stuff

•     FoxyProxy Standard                            - To switch between different network proxies quickly.
•     IE Tab+                                               - Internet Explorer inside Firefox !
•     Session Manager                                 -  Stores the opened tabs and session information.
•     Broadband Speed Test and Diagnostics - Network speed test.

vinayagar chathurthi celebrations

Vinayagar Chathurthi Celebrations near my home in Koramangala in Bangalore. (September 4, 2011)
This is a typical kuthu dance. See the energy of these dancers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RqSsqP1Dq0

Kannada classes in Bangalore

Where I can learn Kannada in Bangalore ?
     When I asked Google ji, he gave me this list. :-)


1. Kannada Prasaara Parishat (B.V. Ragahavan)

Kannada Prasaara Parishat has commenced its next batch of Spoken Kannada, Kannada script learning and higher Kannada classes. The classes are held only on Sundays from 10 am to 1pm, at the Hosmat Hospital premises, Magrath Road, (Near Mayo hall Garuda Mall), Bangalore. For further details contact B V Raghavan - 94488 78569 / H V Nataraj - 98456 80958.


I attended Raghavan sir classes conducted in Hosmat Hospital (near Garuda mall) on every sunday from 10 PM to 1 PM.  He has 40 years experience in Kannada teaching and his experience simply glitters in his classes !.  Recommended for beginners.

2. (By omishra)

Near brigade Tower on Bridage road, adjacent lane has one English medium school. There "Kannada Sahitya parishat" Conducts spoken Kannada classes on every week end, Sunday morning 9-12. They also teach to write Kannada.

Spoken Kannada classes

December 22, 2007 — ellakavi

3. SJR Group of Institutions 
It conducts free classes to teach Kannada for non-Kannadigas in various parts of the city. They have 3 centers: one each at Shantinagar, Koramangala and Basavanagudi.

For details contact Ph: 9845989533.

Few links:

Kannada Learning Center

Learn Kannada

Source : http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/38501-relocation-local-orientation-help6.html

How facebook can ruin (or) rein your life

'facebook' changed the way we communicate with others.  What are its implications ?  These are few points I observe while strolling in the facebook world.

Negatives :
   * Privacy
   * Addiction and time killing

Positives :
   * New dimension in communicating.
   * Feeling of being in social life.
  
Privacy :
   Before 10 years, If I need to meet my friends, I used to meet them in some public place (or) in home.  We used to chat, eat and celebrate the time and leave it.  Full stop.
   If I try to mimic the same thing in facebook, I won't get even half of the real meeting feel.  Whatever I try to say will become status updates / comments.  I will miss that real touch and feel.  I have to be conscious of my privacy and who will see these posts before pressing Enter.  Whatever I say will become record which may not be desirable in the interest of our long lasting friendship.  Unlike business, We don't need records in our friendship. :-)
   Some applications like News Readers (Guardian, thatstamil etc.) post the news items whatever we read in their website and make it public.  This may be embarrassing sometimes if the news item is considered immoral one.  There are some virus applications exist just to extract our data.  Not everyone aware of this.

  Sometimes people bully you and cause unnecessary embarrassment in front of others.  This won't happen in a face to face conversations, at least the damage is repairable.
  Some of our public status updates like I will be out of town this weekend is of jackpot value to criminals. 
Addiction and Time Killing :
   I used to login facebook, when I am lazy, have nothing to do and this is the easy option to pass  the time.
Like TV, there is no end to facebook browsing and the kind of comfort this virtual world offers.  It is a curiosity which constantly urges us to see how many likes / comments we got for our post, Am I having more friends, Am I able to beat my friend in social world games.....to login / logout of the facebook many times a day.  It can distract us from our normal work.  It can make us ignore our immediate family and friends when we feel merrier in the illusory world.
   I also get into this problem, and I set a goal to myself to log in facebook only once in a day.
   There are no free, reliable applications to restrict our facebook usage.
   
New dimension in communicating :
  Facebook gives me the ability to connect with my child hood friend with whom I had lost my contact and he is working in some distant African desert.  I can even find mutual friends, friends based on my likes, pages relating to the areas I want to explore, up to date with latest happenings,... It is amazing.  It is indeed a new dimension in spreading the news, and being in touch with the distant friends in offline or in online.

Feeling of being in social life :
   Man is a social animal.  He needs approval, being liked (or) pissed off by others, share his feelings, thoughts.  It is true that facebook helps  to achieve this to some extent.

At last, I would say,
   Take the positives, aware of the negatives.
   Be with the change which is inevitable in any evolution.

Must Have Windows Desktop Software Applications

1.) Duplicate Files Finder :

      Ever since storage devices becomes cheaper, we lazily create many duplicate files in our hard disk.  This can create a headache when we run out of free space (or) when we can not organize our files in a meaningful structure.  'Duplicate Files Finder' free application comes in handy in this situation.  It is really cool.

         http://doubles.sourceforge.net/


2.) Desktop files search tool :

    'Google Desktop' is an application to search your desktop for specific file or text.
    Google, the leader in searching, often provide better and faster results than the built in search engine provided by the desktop operating systems.

http://download.cnet.com/Google-Desktop/3000-2379_4-10328117.html?tag=contentBody;pop

3.) Open source password management tool :

    'Password Safe' is an open source application to securely save and manage your passwords.

http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/

Incredible India

Funnier side of my mother land