The Canvas Platter

While the Nizam's city is very close to Bangalore, there is one place where you can go inside the busy life in Bangalore to step back into the mughal era. Jalsa restaurant situated near Outer Ring Road, Doddenakundi Village near Marathalli offers you a ambiance taken out of the bygone mughal era.

The restaurant famously known for its Khusboo (aroma), Khubsurti (Decoration) and Swaad (Taste) offers authentic north indian and nizami dishes creatively named with the theme. Would you be craving for Sharmilee, a cocktail made with a orange twist or perhaps Jam-e-mohabat, smiroff and strawberries to tingle your taste buds or maybe Nazuk kali? and so on.

The food items are laced with delights for north-indians who live in Bangalore and they get it right. Unfortunately for me, when I reached the place for a review they were out of murgh dum biryani (since it was a Sunday evening) but I could try out the other dishes.
The dishes offer nothing special in variety and taste exactly the way it should be (which should be considered a blessing in this curd rice obsessed region). The killer part of the whole restaurant is its ambiance that offers a romantic getaway for twosome in the traffic laden life of Bangalore. On special request you get to wear the turbans (mughal hats), just ask your server for that.

Jalsa offers a good theme dining if that is your thing and a good breakaway from the normal restaurants that are lined up in Bangalore.

Go for: The ambiance and the north Indian food.
Where: Near Grand Mall, Doddanekkundi, No.25, Outer Ring Road, Bangalore, Karnataka 560037
098 86 657788
Rating: 3.5/5

Once upon a time in a land far far away, lived a princess sleeping in deep slumber. The sad story of princess began during her childhood, when she went to a birthday party of her friend who lived with seven other men.

In her forest the Princess accidentally bumped into the freshly bathed fairy,

"You have disturbed my peaceful bathing time," shouted the fairy, "I curse you that you will not get any peace from now onwards."

The princess begged, "Forgive me oh noble fairy and I will give you a royal bath in a royal garden where no one will disturb your peace ever again."

The fairy decided to accept the offer, "But my fair child, a curse once given cannot be taken back. I give you a counter curse. You will sleep from now till the purest kiss from the freshly bathed prince comes to wake you up from your restless nightmares."

Thus is the sad story of the restless sleeping princess. There are stories about princes who took bath in valley of scents and even bio-hazard showers to try their luck but none succeed.

When the nanny of prince charming heard this story, she called the prince and sent for the royal barber, "Fool they were for going for extravagant means of bathing. Those men do not understand the mind of a woman. Shave his beard and clean his face," she ordered the barber.

Indeed the wise nanny was right for an unshaven man is an unbathen man. The prince woke up the princess with a rosy clean kiss.

And as it always happens, they lived happily ever after.

This post is a part of the Protest Against Smelly Stubble Activity in association with BlogAdda
I am tagging Siddhesh Kabe +Nimisha Shirodkar +Nethra A  for this post.

In the recent years Bollywood is obsessed with this over the top violence and English with heavy accent dialogue delivery. In this 'confuzing' times Bullet raja brings to table the same old dish with a brand new recipe.

Meet Raja Mishra (Saif Ali Khan), a Brahmin born middle class unemployed youth who gets into bad side of the bad guys by complete coincidence and what was apparently during a monsoon wedding (why I am still clueless). He is joined by Rudra Tripathi (Jimmy 'Why-was-he-not-in-the-promos' Sherill). Together they kick ass, Sholay style with big rifles, sharp shooting and rib-ticking chemistry. The villains are there but only in cameos and guest appearance starting from Chunkey Pandey (reminding of Surma Bhopali) to Ravi Kishan (With his Radha act to avoid the heat) to Gulshan Grover. Together the pair of Raja and Ravi reminds us of the chemistry between Jay and Veeru from Sholay. They are promoted as the muscle power in the political area of UP and act as political commandos.
      

Director Tigmanshu Dhulia does a splendid job of portraying the underbelly of caste-divide politics in UP. The browmance between Saif Ali Khan and Jimmy Shergill reminds us of Shloay. Jimmy is given the tough task of becoming the Bacchan in the duo. He takes center-stage and overshadows Khan with his simple yet powerful acting. The director however does wastes a lot of villain energy in the film. With Gulshan Grover at his disposal, his skills are hardly utilized. We find mention of Paan Singh Tomar in a witty one liner (which was hilarious)

We also find our own Bollywood martial arts master Vidyut Jamwal, who takes down an entire Chammbal ka Bagi down with sprinting and jumping around, but fails to put a bullet in the heros head. With so much muscle power and fight sequences, we find his mention in the trailer very less. While Tigmanshu Dhulia has mastered the art of story telling, he should definitely take a lesson or two from the marketing. The trailer does not give justification to the movie at all.

The treatment of woman in the film was sadly non-existence. Why was there an out of place item number at the beginning of the movie. Sonakshi Sinha is just present with a few Bengali lines and no substance or even character in her role at all.

The songs are grossly misplaced, remove the songs and you will find Tarantino style revenge raga.
This movie may not be a pulp fiction but it is welcome change in times of no-brainers and gravity defining films of-late. 

My Rating:
3 1/2 out of 5. One Star is reduced for the poor portrayal of women.