Iddarammayilatho...asale vaddu

These days when I see Brahmanandam on screen, I know this movie is poised for a failure. Movies with good stories don't need such props ('Gundello Godari', 'Mithunam' and even 'Gunde jaari'...examples).
The movie featuring Allu Arjun, Amala Paul and Katherine Teresa is like a typical 'seeti-maar' masala movie with a concoction of romance, dance, crime, comedy. Allu Arjun has an electrifying presence as usual but utterly wasted in this meaningless, headless movie. And why does Amala Paul look strikingly like (a shorter version of) Deepika Padukone? And Katherine Teresa? Gawd! Why the hero didn't give her two tight slaps and asked her to shut up, I don't know. Never seen a more screeching and annoying acting.
Nothing happens in the first half of the movie. The second half is JUST bearable.
Quickly posting this as soon as I came back from the show to alert people who crave for a good story and a good movie. Didn't get tickets for Jawani-Deewani and hence had opted for this :(
Reviewing this movie is a waste of time.Yet, amidst all this is a short but brilliant piece of acting in one scene between the hero-heroine's parents, brilliantly enacted by Nassar, Tulasi, Tanikella Bharani and Pragati. Rao Ramesh displays exceptionally strong acting in the brief role that he essays. Great genes carried forward!
Bright spots in an otherwise lifeless movie.

Indijoe and Westin: food review

Infrequent posting had never been my intention when I started my blog. Agree, there are the ups and downs of moods but nothing earlier had kept me so irregular at posting.
I mean, being the foodie that I am, I should have at least done justice by doing the restaurant reviews.

Two of the  restaurants that I visited in the last few months have been as below. Some memory fades as its been a while but the impressions are as true as they were. I will post the rest in the next few posts. Till then--

Indijoe: Always open to experimenting with different tastes of food, we tried Indijoe. Indijoe is on the top floor of City Center Mall along with other BJN group of restaurants. Sahib Sindh Sultan though expensive was a decent experience. Indijoe didn't let us down either. Indian food forms a very small proportion of the meal. The buffet, modestly priced, if I remember correctly, at around 350+, has a wonderful mix of continental food. What was pleasantly surprising was finding a decent amount of vegetarian stuff in the buffet. Great taste and a good spread. I normally crave for the salads and starters. They could have experimented more with the salads, which I found were rather limited in imagination.
The ambiance was decent though not very spacious. Service was found wanting. No one really bothered about seating you or come to you for your order though it was a week day and we were among the first ones to visit.
I would rate this buffet a 4/5. Not being too expansive nor limited, they served the right number of items per section. Many a time, too many items in a buffet leave you feeling as though you do justice to none. Will I go there again? A big YES. The good quality of the buffet items make me want to try their a' la carte fare the next time.

Westin. Had heard so much about Westin that by the time we visited it, the expectations were sky-high. And all those expectations were met exceedingly well. What's there in Westin? Well, an exorbitant buffet spread priced exorbitantly!
Being a thorough foodie, I prefer to taste across multi-cuisine and never believed in indulging only in Indian. Well, a foodie can have his heart's delight as they have food from across globe. Even when you have a tbsp or two of every dish, you cannot taste everything in the spread! My taste buds go bananas at the mere mention of the Indian street food like the chat, and its unbelievable that I couldn't taste it! I was so filled with just the visual delight of the spread! There were at least 14 varieties of the ice creams! The fun part was that they had ample varieties in each of these cuisines spread across continents. So, people who are not open to experimenting with their food are also not disappointed.
The restaurant is quite spacious with good distance between the tables. Service was quite courteous. If I remember right, the buffet was priced at around Rs. 1100 per head. If I were to be really finicky, and choose to say something negative, I would say that the vegetarians ought to be really careful. Most of the dishes have the veg and the non-veg versions of the dishes placed right next to each other and the labels, though present, are skewed (not enough space to place them) and leads to confusion. I ended up serving myself  some non veg stuffed momos and had to quickly have my plate replaced. After that, I asked the steward before I served myself the suspicious looking ones.
Will I go there again? YES, a hundred times!