Lunch at Nalas, Chrompet!

Last week, had a chance to taste the Nala's feast twice as being part of the project lunches.. Though am not a good eater, I just wanted to enjoy the lunch trying out with a different Appam, as Nala's Appa Kadai is famous for those delicious appams... I had ordered for a Butter Panneer Appam and to mild away the heavyiness, a plain naan to myself; the team had ordered for a variety of veg side dishes and the dry items like lady's finger fry and vegetable fries. ( I meant this for the veg people only who are part of the team; the non-veg guys are very choosy about biriyani as they had ordered Egg Biriyani and went for chicken and mutton gravies to go with them.)

Second time, when I went there on friday for another project lunch, I went for Veg Biriyani and the appam with usual veg gravies ordered and shared with the team.

Location:
Nala's Appa Kadai at Chromepet in the groundfloor of Naidu Hall shop, opposite to the Chromepet Railway Station.

Taste:
The B.P.Appam was nice and cooked with grated panner spread over the appam; All the gravies (Gobi Manchurian, Paneer Butter Masala, Uruli (tastes similar to the Vatha Kuzhambu with lots of small onions) and dry items also were nice and without any taste issues. I heard from non-veg friends that they also tasted well.

Speciality:
The Appam podum kitchen stall is visible to the guests,to show the gala of cooks revolving appam kadai's (utensil) with appa mavu. After the lunch, first time, I ordered for Straw berry Milk Shake and the second time, went for Pista Milk Shake with icecream; Both were tasted very nice and delicious.

Negatives:
Inspite of 15 stoves and 3 cooks at appam stall, I got the B.P.Appam after more than once reminder to the server. Second time, the soup was not been served to me but the Veg Biriyani was given before that; hence I had to cancel by Sweet Corn soup.

It appears to me, the people who took orders are less experienced and hence had the delays in serving. The highlight was, they took orders in their palm tops and sent the orders straightaway to the kitchen; May be the delays can be termed as TECHNICAL ERRs :) as we used to tell to our clients.

I read Ananda Vikatan, this week

I generally never buy magazines on my own and reading magazines like Kumudham, Ananda vikatan and all was happened a long back, I should say.. Probably before marriage and when my brothers used to get home.

But as these days, am travelling by train to office, to whisk away the drowsiness, I got the Anada vikatan from the railway platform shop, this monday. Just had the time to read it while the travelling in train and completed yesterday, thursday. The four days spent in general readings is really refreshing to me and able to get my thoughts and attention for the day to day happenings in the city.

Overall, I am happy with the content and the way it is presented in Ananda Vikatam and am very much happy the content is standard and I havent come across even a single spell error in tamil to my knowledge; extremely happy and goodos to the sub-editor. (Generally, the typos used to grab my immediate attention as I also worked as sub-editor for a technical tamil magazine)

The content that I read, creating thought waves in my mind are: Srilankan happenings and Thiru. Nedumaran's comments on them, Storyline based on a music reviewer (Subbudu's thakkam theriyuthu..), Thanthiran article on Rajini's decision on politics, Vijayakanth's actions in public front etc. All the over, its fine and gave a good satisfaction and worth for the money spent on Ananda Vikatan, this week :-)

Nikki Grimes - Her pride, I call Modesty

Nikki Grimes - I happened to come across this famous Lady Author's website, who, an anthological poet too. she writes for children and frequently visits them at schools for various speeches. She is actually a consequent 5 weeks NewYork Best seller List for her book 'Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope'. Though she state her excitation touched the sky, her modesty keeps her firmly on the ground while she expressed the below:

'what does it mean to make it onto this list? Did I make it because this particular title is better written than all my previous books? Hardly. Does it mean that someone else's new book was less worthy? Nope. It mostly means that I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right set of writing chops and experience, at the exact point in time when lightning struck. I'd call it luck, except I know God had a hand in it. Still.' - http://www.nikkigrimes.com/notes.html

I was really touched by the Nikki's words shared here. Do you?

Anthology - A collection of literary pieces, such as poems, short stories, or plays. (answers.com)

Obama - A contestant of US Presidential Elections now.