Coffee made from cat poop, anyone?

I was watching this program on Fox Traveler where the anchor went on a night trail to catch a sighting of civets in Coorg. While they did not sight the elusive civet, what they found were its droppings. And what's more, the droppings comprised of a bunch of coffee beans. 

The jungle civet apparently picks the choicest of the coffee cherries and feeds on them during the night. But the animal can only digest the pulp. What remains behind is your coffee bean. The bean travels through its digestive system, gets mixed with all the enzymes and juices and is pooped in clusters. And these people who could not spot the civet, spotted the coffee bean cluster, picked it up (yuick!) and were amazed by it! 

The coffee bean clumps are then cleaned, dried and roasted and processed, as if nothing happened! 

I frantically googled this after watching the program and was shocked to see that coffee thus produced, is the most expensive coffee in the world. It is widely produced in Indonesia and sold on Amazon, at a price that is astounding- $44 for 100 gms! So much for cat poop! And why would someone pay so much for coffee? Because it is custom roasted in most places, is produced in very small quantities and is less bitter due to the magic juices secreted from the palm civet. I have one more thing to add to the list of its qualities that it is made from an animal's poop. Ew! 

Bizarre people with tonnes of money to spend would not mind the indulgence. But i hope they do tell their guests what's in the coffee before it is served :) And me, I am happy with my cuppa chai :) 

The Village, Mall of Mysore

Sunday lunch was at this new place in Mall of Mysore called Village. Located in the fourth floor of the mall, Village (Not to be confused with its namesake in Innovative Multiplex Complex and other places) has a nice artificially created rustic setting. You pay soon as you enter, at 1045 for 4 people, it seemed very reasonable. Soon as you pay, there is a guy playing the dhol and a lady with an aarti plate who welcomes you with a tika on the forehead.

Soon as the ceremonial welcome is done, they just let you be on your own. There is nobody really attending to you, it is as if you have strolled into a village mela.

There is a central area with a so-called Banyan tree with buntings tied all around it. On the particular day, the restaurant staff had organised musical chairs, passing the parcel and some other fun team game in the area. There is an open auto and a stage alongside from where you can enjoy the proceedings. Anybody is free to participate in their games. As you are playing, you can walk by for a chaat and have some more since everything on the floor is unlimited. I thought that two hands weren't really enough for the chaatwala to serve all the people at the "tabela" as they called it.
After the chaat, you can walk by to the dosa making man and pick your choice of dosa- masala, tomato-onion and i forget the third variety. Dosas are served with Chutney and Sambar. There is another guy by the side dishing out fresh salad. I picked a channa salad that they had nicely named  "Chaniya Waniya" :)

Main course comprises freshly made tandoor rotis and bajra roti  with baingan bharta, paneer pasanda, a kurma and channa masala. You can then go on to rice, hakka noodles and manchurian ( in a village setting? I decided to skip for good :) ) or take your pick from Samosa, dal-baati churma,dhokla and piping hot pakodas. All this can be washed down with unlimited chaas/ lassi served in bottles.                                                                  

Lassi bottle

The food in all is just about average. Nothing to write home about or nothing that would make you want to visit the place many times over. But must give it to them for recreating the village setting, for being really warm. A lady in the staff distributed dandiya sticks to every person in the restaurant and goaded each of us to get on the floor and dance. When there is an enthusiastic crowd, live dholak, foot tapping music, one really can't help but shake a leg and try a hand with dandiya. Go there if you have a big gang to have fun with, loads of time to while away, an appetite to eat a lot and the enthusiasm to dance away all that you have eaten!

P.S. Village is also located in Jayanagar Central in Bangalore

Of strangers and chance encounters

It was like any other normal Monday when i climbed into the train, early in the morning, to get to Bangalore. Had a disturbed sleep and found myself wide awake in an hour. Most other people in the train were still fast asleep, all cosy in their woolens- it really IS cold early morning! It was then that the lady came by and asked if she could sit down beside me. Unable to sleep, she had just climbed down from the upper berth. I immediately moved my bag to make some place for her. She gave me a big smile and offered to put my bag beside hers, on the upper berth. Tall and well built that she was, she picked it in a flick and did not even have to stretch to shove it on the upper berth.
I went back to the music that i was listening to. We sat quietly for a long time. When people started waking up one by one, she asked around for directions to the airport in Bangalore and how she could get there. While most of them suggested a taxi, i told her that the volvo was a better and more economic option. When i mentioned about some auto and taxi people fleecing foreigners, she gave me the "been through it" look and narrated an incident where the auto guy asked her to push the auto to get it started. And yes, subsequently drove away. Her lucky star was probably shining bright cause she was able to catch up with him at a signal and got her stuff back. I was actually shocked that someone could fall for a trick in the book as old as this!
Since she found an eager listener, she told me how she had paid upwards a thousand bucks for quarter of a kg of tea and about 150 a piece a bangle, fully knowing that they were overpriced. She told me she was a music teacher in Austria and let me peep into her travel diary. Pages and pages of the places that she had been to, references of hotels and restaurants, people she had met during her travel and her "to visit" list. Next on it was Mumbai, where she was headed. I was amazed at the extent of her research and planning- down to the restaurants, shopping places and guided tours, for all 5 days of her stay. I threw in a few more places in an around Mumbai from what i remembered of my last visit.
We got talking about single woman travelers, safety concerns, of what good pepper sprays are and how it was so damn exciting for her to save up and go travelling like this. As we got down at Bangalore Station, i offered to walk with her to the bus stop to show her where the BIAL buses stopped. As we were walking, we picked up where we left off on single woman topic. She told me how there were people back home in Austria coaxing her to get married, and i went "oh my god, it is the same story everywhere!" When we reached the BIAL stop and i wanted to shake hands with her, she pulled me and gave me a tight hug when i least expected it. My name went into her travel diary, along with my mail id. And as i was turning back, she stopped me to give me a "gift". Much as i tried to say no and refuse, she persisted and gave me a pretty clip and said it would look good on my hair. And that she did not know how else to say thanks for the help that i did. I never thought it was something worth a gift.
 I certainly would not have had the sensibility to show my gratitude with anything more than a word of thanks. And now that i look back, i wonder if i would have been so open in the first place, to taking a stranger's help while in a different city, and whether i would have had that kind of implicit trust that i would be taken the right way. I would certainly have cross checked with some research off the net or asked around more than one person. I started to work with a smile, clutching a pretty clip in my hand.
My week started on a good note. I met Ilvana, a woman really simple, who taught music, sewed her own clothes and was determined to see as much of the world, garner as many experiences and meet as many new people as possible!

Latest Acquisition

Say hello to my new Kindle touch! :)

Now my travel bag will not groan under the load of multiple books!

Mad Over Donuts, Bangalore

Yesterday, Mad Over Donuts, or M.O.D as they are known, opened shop in Bangalore. My hotshot yembeeyay friend who had done some project on niche chains like MOD dragged me along with her to sample some donuts at the place.

It was a long anticipated opening. The store has been under construction for a while now. On Saturday, the atmosphere was festive with a friendly man distributing balloons to young and old alike. The head chef guy was cheering the entire staff and all of them were chanting M-O-D aloud. And to add to all the happiness, they were giving away free samples of the donuts to all the people who walked in!

The place is hard to miss- standing right outside the food court of Phoenix Market City. M.O.D claims that those who have not lost their hearts to donuts would lose them post sampling them. And they stand true to their claim.

In keeping with our love for all things chocolaty, we set out to order the Choco Bomb and Double Trouble - two of their most recommended items. To our dismay, both trays were empty. However, the person at the counter told us that they were getting made, and would be available in a jiffy!

So I went on to sample my first donut from M.O.D. Sinful, delicious and wholesomely chocolaty. That is all I can say about it. Double trouble was worth every penny. It has a lot more filling when compared to what Donut Baker offers and scores on the taste front too!

One can see the bakers making donuts in the place. And my! I dont know whether it was because it was Day 1 or what, but the entire staff was buzzing with high energy!

They have other cheesy sounding flavors like Blush Factor, Original Sin and After dark. The donuts come in rings and are filled. And there are plenty of flavors to choose from! They are priced upwards Rs.50, slightly more premium than donut baker.

I intend to revisit and fill in more details.

P.S. Ashu, thanks a ton for taking me there and all the gyaan :)

  

The whole six yards

A conversation that led to this post:

Me: (In the pantry, steeping a tea bag) Wow! Enna special? You turned up in a saree!
She: Nothing special ya!
Me: Don't chumma say nothing. Birthday aa?
She: No ya! I have so many sarees. Rarely wear them. Why simply save it up for functions only? So i decided to wear it to work.
Me: Nice ya!
She: Well, it will look and all nice, but who is even thinking of me having to maintain it?
Me( thinking) If Saree maintenance is difficult, then why go for it? :)

For most of us ladies these days, office wear would mean a pair of jeans and a top or a salwar-kurta. The whole concept of the saree being an attire for everyday purpose is gone! Everybody complains about the difficulty in maintaining a saree! For God's sake, people work the fields in a saree. Until the advent of "modern outlook", the saree was our staple clothing. My mom goes to work everyday in a saree. How is being in an air conditioned office tough? Why then does our generation think that it is difficult to handle and manage? It is simply because we are not used to draping a saree. Anybody will vouch for the fact that a saree clad woman, when draped well, is elegance personified. But well, we have not been used to wearing it oh-so-often. It is only during some function that we would slip into one (of course, draping it isn't as easy as slipping-in!) And then all the maami's would go, aDa! So pretty! You girls look so nice in a saree. You should wear it often!
And then you suddenly feel that all eyes are on you. So much that you want to go back to being in your "normal" clothes. Ladies of our generation, who are interested, should learn the skill of draping the saree. Only then will we realise how beautiful it is. And we should start treating the saree also as normal clothing, not as something that is unmanageable and attention grabbing. And the first step to that would be to stop asking people who turn up to work in a saree as to what is special?! :)

Learning a new script

Having studied in KV, I am severely handicapped when it comes to my reading and writing skills in regional languages. So when tamil speaking friends at work took to learning to write kannada, i asked myself whether I was happy with just my English and Hindi script knowledge. I knew that I was happy with my passable kannada reading skills that serve the purpose of reading signboards and bus routes. Since I know that level of kannada, reading telugu movie posters is also not a big deal. The challenge of course, is with Tamil.

In the pre-google era, I would call my parents to read out the name of the interesting movie or serial playing out on Sun TV. Whenever I had to write out a comment in tamizh, naa english script ae vechchi sammaaLippen. But now, I want to learn the language. Simply because I want to read those lovely stories that Amma used to read out from Kumudam and Kalki. Because I want to be able to use right sounding tamizh words effortlessly like Gopinath does in Neeya Naana. Because I want to read Ponniyin Selvan. I have heard people raving about the novel like they rave about Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. I know that for a beginner, Ponniyin Selvan is far far away. But I like a good challenge. So I am at it, starting today :) It all  looks like jalebi right now, but very soon I should be able to make sense of the alphabet. Best thing is that the Tamil alphabet does not have so many letters!
P.S. Watch this space for an update in the form of the review of Ponniyin Selvan :)