And....Capsicum it is!

I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 8th – 14th December 2013.

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I have been in Chennai for an year now but still i am angry at myself for not knowing it better. I can point everything i know in a single para! Don't believe me? Let's see..

There's this nice burger joint in Chennai central though not world famous but still satisfactory and a 'ok' sandwich point nearby and Hotel Saravana Bhavan where there is supposed to be the best sambar in Chennai only i didn't notice it previously but the last few months i couldn't climb the stairs so still sulking for not tasting it. There is also a Thalaipakkatti joint but its is in no way comparable to the quality when i had it in Venkatnarayana rd, Tnagar. Then there is Barbecue nation on the other side of the Tnagar bridge where my friends forgot to mention me about a party since i was working hardcore till 10pm daily. Ever since i am trying to find a good excuse to go there sometime but haven't found any. Near it on the main road there is Murugan Idly hotel in front of which there is a mix-fruit drink stall, the best i have had in years. The best sambar i have had till now would be in Annapurna mess somewhere near Tnagar bus terminal and then there is hotel Buhari for a decent egg biryani on a Sunday afternoon near Audi showroom in west cit nagar. Then there is this best shawarma joint in south west boag road better than the one i had in Pheonix mall in Velacherry. In Thoraipakkam, there is Satpura - one stop parotta mall. And that's pretty much sums it!! You agree right? I infact don't know much! 

At first i thought i should write about what i liked about the above mentioned dishes but after trying a little i found i couldn't possibly do justice to all of them and it will definitely be a long post and half of my readers..that's.. you would lose interest before reading it right? So i decided i should consider just one but am no where near picking one of these. In the end i decided to start thinking about what dish i like the most not just in Chennai and then it hit me. Ofcourse, why didn't i think about it earlier? You see, about two or three years ago i fell in love with Capsicum! When i was visiting a relative of mine in Bangalore i picked it up in the market and from then on its a rollercoaster. I wondered at how i liked all of the varieties that were made with it. How could one vegetable be so awesome? Its the special ingredient of a sandwich (well! Home made one's anyway), Its tastes so good when stuffed and burnt or chopped or fried or cooked and i wouldn't know what else!

Capsicum heaven!

Thank you Corinne Rodrigues for making me realize this through your prompt! Now that i realised, i googled it and found its used most in a lot of awesome Mid-eastern dishes as you can see in the pic above. If you want i have piled up some of these recipe's here and i intend to taste each and every one of them. A quest for a life time! :D

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Picture Credits : Wikipedia, Tarladalal.com, taste.com.au , hark

The above post was written for write tribe's Festival of words - Day 2 prompt Food-food.  

The problem with business listing

When i got a job in Chennai, i was totally freaked out. I didn't know tamil for starters and i wasn't sure if the food will be ok. Unlike experienced people joining, we freshers do not have comfort period to look for apartment's and hostels. Lucky them, they get about 7 to 10 days of corporate guest house facilities. But i had to report and go on foot searching for hostels and pg accommodation. But ofcourse since a ton of us fresher's get dropped at a time, information was passed quickly and it became a little easy to find them. But soon i was asked to go to another branch! What am i to do? I checked company portal for accommodation listing but couldn't find any. So i tried business listings like justdial. It saved my day..true...but i couldn't find what i was hoping for. After looking for a day or two i thought to myself ...is there really no place where i can expect good cleanliness, moderate furniture, comfortable bed and spacious almarahs ( not even rooms )? And i adjusted with the best option available. 

The truth is there were places like that but there was no direct networking to such places. Unfortunately word of mouth can't reach everywhere...atleast not in time! Another problem is what i faced today. When i went accommodation hunting with a friend, we reached a place where we were asked to wait 10 minutes to meet the manager. During that time we met some people already staying there and chatted a little. They said about available facilities which are impressive like geyser, free WiFi, sofa, tv and all only the twist is they also told that they had been robbed of valuable things and are planning to leave that place too. Had we waited for the manager we would have surely taken that accommodation but the consequences might have been bad. The main source of income of business listing is the paid reviews and ratings. We once tried to put a bad review only to find it goes on a loop of moderation and never gets published. I guess they were paid to do so! Since these free listings give heavy competition to paid business listing they would be easily closed down right? Wish there was a middle ground between all these where ultimately the common consumer wont be disappointed!