Food Bloggers Review : JALPAAN- Classy Vegetarian Restaurant in Chennai

Have been to GRT Adyar and just missed watching the big Jalpaan restaurant board in the same building.  Unless my friend choose this place our School Friends Reunion on the New Year Day this year.    Alas!  It was a good choice.  

 

Very classy ambiance coupled with pure vegetarian cuisine was a welcome for our gang which had maximum number of vegetarians.   Especially for Jains, this is a place they can have a proper vegetarian meal.   First thing of service is the valet parking facility on the busy main road of Adyar.  Such a relief to have a good parking place.  Next and importantly the biggest thing is Food!  You can relish both North Indian and Italian cuisine with happiness.   We and our big gang of kids loved their chat items and especially Pani Poori's that came with small jugs of Pani :-)  

 

The Salads were regular, and the starters were lip-smacking.   The paneer cheese balls, the veg vadas, gobi Manchurian,  cheese kababs made us enjoy the meal.   After couple of starters rounds, there was less craving for the main course.   However,  there were good spicy biryani, veg fried rice, with green thai curry, regular rice and rasam with variety of papads and veg salads.  

 

Desserts were good, however, there was less amounts of refill as we were getting towards the end of the dining.   We had to repeatedly ask them for refill or serve to the table and this can be improved.  However,  the meal ended with scoops of icecreams and Jalpaan and real paan :-)   We wished the icecreams also had some choices other than plain vanilla and strawberry :-)  that day probably because the restaurant was over crowded on the New Year evening.  

 

I would personally give this restaurant rating of 4/5 for the good food and ambience. 

 

Modern and basic vegetarian restaurant offering Italian, Indian and other international dishes.

Address: No. 17/18, 3rd Floor, Opposite Bus Depot Above GRT Jewellery,, Sardar Patel Rd, Gandhi Nagar, Adyar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600020

Phone:044 4550 1244

Day 50 - Every Day Inspiration - Three things to remember

Day 49 - Every Day Inspirations - #LifeWithoutYou

Life without you!

My Dad and I -  A Father's Love is Forever!

As I walk along the beach

Holding my bag slinging on my side

I wish you could just come

And hold my hand to walk along

Sitting in the sand,

Watching the waves

Trying to go and pick a shell

Wishing everything was just well

There is love, love in abundance

In my heart, in my soul for you

I laugh to myself recalling your wit

And giggle over your lovely treats

As you touch my head to bless

I hug you in your warmth no less

You are the first man in my life

A friend, a guide, a great dad!

Teaching me traits to bigger dreams

Guiding me in my own chosen paths

Inspiring all along with your love

Keeping the home sweet and peace

Life without you, was unimaginable!

But as we had to deal with your loss

I had no lack of your love

For I always felt your presence!

A divine light guiding me through

Letting me feel life always with you!

#indispire

#Life without you!

 

Day 48- Every Day Inspirations - A woman tangled between 2 men who love her!

Story written as part of the CBC – Love Letter Contest -  17 Feb 2016 -  A story of an anonymous friend....a lovely woman tangled between two amazing men who love her so much!

Hi Dear,

I kept looking at the road, where your car took its sharp turn.  After spending long hours on the lovely ride and couple of hours in dining, still feeling like wanting you around as you dropped me home.  Sorry. Dropped me at the street end.  Wish you could have walked along with me, helped me open the locked door and sat in the living room watching your favorite cricket as I made you hot chai.   Deep inside me I know it can just be a dream.   For I am somebody’s wife.  I only wish you came in my life earlier, long before we got caught in the strings of marriage to the spouses to whom we are a definite misfit.   

I enjoy being with you, but not without having a guilt of being in another marriage.   Cheating on my husband who believes that I am all for him.  Though we both smile together for pictures, go together for events, attend all our duties with utmost care, something somewhere deep inside me knows that it is all not true.  For the truth of my heart is being with you.  Wish I could have walked out of the man who entangled my life with the thread of marriage.  Wish I could do what my heart craves for doing as true.  

You may ask, why this letter now?   When you had the chance to lay on my chest and whisper your anxieties to me.   I am scared.  I am scared if you would tell me to end the marriage and walk with you.  I am scared of the society, my orthodox parents, my simple husband who trusts me too much, and my children whose life will get shattered with the turn of events, with my surname changed in the records, in the office, in the social network.   Yes, I am scared to death about the changes that would come with being a divorced woman.   And lot more with a re-marriage.  

It doesn’t end there.  I can imagine, your wife pulling me aside on the road and hitting me hard on the face.   I can imagine the never ending arguments and battles for custody of children in the courts of law.  Should we still dare to do to live together?  All this for one and only reason of being in love.  I ponder.

Though the path is not going to be smooth, and I am sure that with you lies my happiness, why am I not having the courage to do what is right.   Is it not insane to be acting as someone’s wife being in that marriage whereas all my feelings for you are no less than being a true wife?   You may answer this easily.   Like you always do.  Let us keep this only between us.  Enjoy your life as it throws things at you.  Count every moment we get to sneak out from the mundane routine of being amidst the tangles.   Rejoice the small tit-bits of happiness that we could explore together.

I see a strong trill and excitement in you every time, you get to pick me up from office, and spend a silent evening in the Café Coffee Day. You behave like a teenage lover, who loves to take the girl on a bike ride in a sea shore.   At the same time, while dropping me back at home, you behave like an adamant child refusing to let the mother go to work.  What do you want me to do?  Am confused, tensed and absolutely drained being in this love.   But can I give it up!   NO!  I hear my heart crying out loud and loud!

Why did you come in my life?   Late!  Very Late!  Wish either you came early when I started my life in marriage or just did not come on my way.  Who is to be blamed?  My parents for putting me through a marriage without knowing if the other person would be able to fit in my life, rather, I adjust to him with all the baggage that came along.  Or should I blame my destiny, God who always did what is right to me?  I don’t know.   I will only blame you and me for having come this far together not knowing where to move or to just let this relationship go?   

You keep reassuring me that things would be fine, as long as we know to balance our life.  Many times, you indirectly insisted that I continue having sex with my husband in order to not let him doubt my relationship with him.  How can I do that?   Having you in mind and soul, and letting my body play with the man just because he happens to be my social husband.   It would be not cheating him, but my own self!  Dare you tell this to me again, I am going to hit you hard with all my force?

There are several friends of mine, who balance their lives happily ever after.   In marriage, outside marriage, not being in marriage. And all sorts.   Having two of you who would die for my love is what makes me crumble to pieces when I introspect myself.   If it is you, whom I want, and I go to my husband and tell him this, he would only be happy to let me go with you and restart my life all over again, for he never refused to do anything that I have asked him.  He cares for me beyond what I can ask for.  But that care lacks something.  Probably my happiness.  

If I tell you that I am getting tired being between you both, you would happily leave me and go.  I cannot tell you this in person, for I am not sure that I can leave you and live in peace.  You make me happy, happy beyond what I can express.   How can I complain?

Now dear, I am tired.  Tired being pampered with care.  Tired being loved to the core.  Probably it is time for me to keep away and silently let me calm and think.   Keeping my tired nerves to rest for a while, till I feel how best I can come rejuvenated.   I hate calling you my paramour or letting the world call me your keep.   I am not your wife, but your soul mate.  Not letting me forget I am his wife!

Tears run down my cheeks as I write this to you, drenched in your love.   Words fail to express the thoughts that are crossing all around.  Come to me dear, I need you now, more than ever.  Hug me tight and let me cry till I feel better.   If not anything, just be my friend on whose shoulder I can lean anytime and feel that I am cared & I am loved.  Just Loved.

 Sincerely loved & confused!

 Yours/  (Never truly yours!)

Day 47- Every Day Inspirations - Salute to a woman of substance- Anuradha Koirala

 

#Salute 

Source -  Official Geet

Day 46- Every Day Inspirations - Does Socialism works?

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked well since no one would be poor and no one would be rich, thus providing a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on the Socialist plan".... All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade, so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.....After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they likewise studied little

.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one was motivated to study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward (and risk) is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will work really hard to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

-   Author Unknown ( Source:  Internet)