BARR - Dosa Place

A restaurant review, after a long time. This restaurant made me get back to writing reviews!

After a strong recommendation from Mitr and K, we decided to check out Dosa Place this weekend.

When San told me that it is between Kiely and San Tomas Expressway on El Camino Real in Santa Clara, I immediately reeled off possible locations.

"Either it has to be in the complex which has DiCiccos or the complex that has the Officemax and Java Coffee.. there are no other places there.. unless the Uno Pizza which became a Chinese restaurant is now an Indian restaurant?". For those women out there who are intersted in knowing San's response, it was "Just shut up and drive!"

There are two new Indian restaurants. One called Peacock in the Officemax complex and the Dosa Place, which has actually replaced Dicicco's Italian Restaurant! I have fond memories of the Italian place. When San was pregnant with Jr., she would order me to go get breadsticks from Diciccos.

Location : 2665 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA
Wait time : 5 minutes (reasonable crowd but the place is big and we were seated instantly).
Food wait time from order : 10 minutes for all items including Dosa
Check time : 2 minutes (Visa, Mastercard, and they take AMEX)
Average price per person : $8
Rating "I miss my mother in law!".
Service : Excellent.. Really Excellent!

Items sampled : Rava Dosa, Poori Masala, Andhra Thali, Chai.

The old Italian restaurant used to be long and the walls were painted a dark color. Now the whole place is brightly lit, and looks spacious.

The food was excellent. All the items were amazing. But there is more to this review than the food. I remember my mom telling my sister once during a function at home "You should always smile when you serve the guests food. That is when they feel like eating". If you read that and said "hey, that is just common sense", well it is not the norm in most Indian restaurants in the bay area where someone serves you because they are paid by the hour and you can pretty much tell that they don't care about your culianary experience!

Dosa Place has a lot of things going for it.

1. It is brightly lit. The place looks festive!
2. The waiters, waitresses, manager, cleaners all seem to be in the 20-30 age group. They remind you of the singapore airlines air-hostesses. Always smiling and energtic and very polite they made us feel welcome.
3. They play nice fast paced Indian instrumental music in the background.

When we asked the manager she said "this is a kind-of family owned restaurant. We started two months ago and have a branch in Fremont".

We really hope that their service doesn't decline as the crowds go up!

For a second I was sad to see Dicicco's go, but now I am happy that it has found a worthy replacement.

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Hooked again...

Cannot get "Baa Baa Bamba" out of my head!

We play videos (usually from this blog) or from youtube when we feed the kids.

Accidentally got a seasme street clip, one link leads to another and before you know it, we are watching my favorite song!

Two years ago, there was no youtube.. no such link..

Now there is!, and if you are a Grover fan, here is "Monster in the mirror".

Jr. seems to have forgotten how crazy she was about these songs at one time. She is falling in love with them all over again!

Finally a perfect daddy-kid cartoon song. We loved this so much that we bought the DVD two years ago! It is "The alligator king".

ps. I am not a big fan of these youtube snippets because I am sure they are some kind of copyright violation and it is a question of time before they get taken down. Just wish that Sesame street would make some of these clips or even teasers of clips, available on their official site! Would also give bloggers like me a chance to show the readers what we are talking about, and maybe increase their DVD sales! After all, we are advertising them for free here...

pps. An anonymous commenter had requested the lyrics for the song two years ago. I am still trying to find the lyrics.. I did used to speak a little spanish in grad. school days thanks to the Dancing connection and learnt Beginner and Intermediate spanish.. so here is my attempt to give you the lyrics..

Baa Baa Bamba

As I walked in the country one day by chance
all the sheep in the meadow were doing a dance
and they were singing ...

Baa baa Bamba, Baa baa bamba
baa baa bamba, baa baa bamba

Y siguieron bailando Y bailando mas
entonces la vaca hecho el compas
entonces la vaca hecho el compas

And then the cow said how do you do
How do you do
I wanna dance and sing like you
Yes I wanna dance and sing like you
Yes I wanna sing and dance like you
I do!
and she was singing

Moo Moo mamba, ha ha haa, Moo Moo mamba
Moo Moo mamba, Moo Moo mamba

Y siguieron bailando Y bailando hai
un patito nadando pason por ayi
un patito nadando pason por ayi

And then the duck who just to happen to swim on by
said that is a dance I would like to try
said that is a dance I would like to try
and he was singing

quack quack quamba
quack quack quamba
quack quack quamba
quack quack quamba

Y siguieron bailando Y bailando hai
un gatito saltando pason por ayi
un gatito saltando pason por ayi

and then the cat who was playing in the hay
said watch and sing while I dance away
said watch and sing while I dance away
and he was singing

Meow meow Mamba, Meow meow Mamba
Meow meow Meaomba, okay, Meow meow Meaomba

baa baa bamba, baa baa bamba
moo moo mamba, moo moo mamba
quack quack quamba, quack quack quamba
meow meow mamba,meow meow mamba,

everybody...

baa baa bamba, baa baa bamba

Se necesita una poca de gracia
Una poca de gracia pa'mí y pa' ti
Ay Arriba y arriba
Ay arriba y arriba

Yo no soy marinero,
Yo no soy marinero
Soy capitan
Soy capitan
todos huntos
one more time..

Bambaaaaaa!!!!

Seguir - to follow , continue
Saltar - to play
Nadar - to swim
Bailar - to dance

Native spanish speakers, please correct mistakes, apologies in advance for mistakes..

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To have or not to have Pongal ?

Pongal is a festival that gives us a chance to thank the Sun for shining down on us and giving us food to eat!

2006 was great!

2007 Pongal was spent in Bombay with the in-laws (We had just reached, and were starting to go out)!

2008 brings us some questions. My aunt passed away a few weeks ago in India. My dad, who is the only sibling left of what was a dozen kids, could not even go to the funeral as he is tending to my recently operated mom in a city that is alien to him! I know that he shed a silent tear or two and moved on because of his current circumstance. That said, my mum told me over the phone that this year, there is no Pongal for us!

I do not know if this is a custom restricted to Indians? south Indians? Hindus? Brahmins? a sub set of Brahmins? etc. etc.

It is possible to understand the sense in the one year mourning(yes, it is a no festival celebrations rule, till the anniversary of the death), to remember the person who passed on. It might make that person's soul happy, when they are looking down and they see their family is toning it down when the rest of the townspeople are painting the town red, but no one can actually verify this.

The thing that gets me is that this is very hard on the kids. Many a year, as a kid, when my parents would declare no Deepavali due to the death of some older relative we have hardly met, we would actually curse that relative! If kids are closer to god and we were actually cursing the dead relative, the parents were doing more harm than good by not celebrating! They could have cut down the prayer and given the kids the sweets and fire crackers.

However, I do have to add that when two of my uncles (dad's brothers) passed away within a three day period, I really did not feel like celebrating anything for a long long time... I was also not a kid anymore! That was 1993 and those two back to back events left my dad and his elder sister the only two left out of a 12 pack!

On the one hand, I am torn by what my dad is going through. None of his generation is left. He might be feeling lonely for all I know. I do feel that my aunt (who I knew) could be remembered by a toned down pongal!

Not fair to Jr. and the Little One though. They do not know my seventy year old aunt. Jr. spent 10 minutes with her three years ago, and the litte one has never seen my aunt!.

I have decided that there will be no prayer, but there WILL be Pongal for the kids to eat. Planning to make the Pongal myself, with a silent prayer for my aunts soul to rest in peace.

In the event I do not make the Pongal, we know at least two local Indian restaurants that will have free Pongal! for all who eat there...

Here is my grandmother's recipe, in case you are interested in trying...

1. Take 3/4 cup rice+ 1/4 cup moong dal + a few spoons of channa dal, roast in pan in low heat to make them dry. Then, put in pressure cooker, add two cups water, one cup milk, cook partially (let your cooker whistle once if it normally whistles thrice) and set aside.

2. roast cashewnuts, raisins, cardamom seeds in ghee (clarified butter) and set aside

3. soak some saffron in a few spoons of water and set aside

4. In a big vessel, add 1 cup jaggery (or 1 cup of molasses liquid, if you are in a place like Troy, New York and Jaggery is not available! works the same) and 1 1/2 cups of water. Stir till the consistancy of the liquid is such that when you take it on a ladle and drop the liquid back into the vessel, the liquid does not break or spatter. Remember the ad's you see on TV where the cough syrup smoothly coats the inside of your throat? That consistant!

5. At this point, add the contents from the rice cooker to the sugar syrup and start stirring. Add some more Ghee and the saffron water and keep stirring. When the ghee starts to segregate, add the roasted Cashews etc.

6. Finally, sprinkle some pachai kalpooram into the pot (literal translation is green camphor. don't know where this is available in the USA. we have a small box, which I got from India in 1998!) and give it a final whirl.

You are now ready to taste something that is downright Divine!

To all those out there celebrating, Happy Pongal!

"Iniya pongal nal-vazhthukkal!"

May your year be as sweet as the Pongal you make!

A footnote: it is spelled pachai and not pachchai!! Here is the Wiki Link to the edible camphor! Got to go find out if this tree is available in the US! and plant one in the backyard right away...
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