The Lunchbox - You never know what each dabba holds

Too many 'poignant moment' spoiler alerts to count. Don't read this if you haven't watched the movie and want to 'really' watch it.

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So The Lunchbox came out of nowhere, got fancy eyeballs, got press, then it got Johar and Kashyap, it got marketing pesos, it got bigger dreams (Best Foreign Film Oscar big), and then it deflated a bit when it didn't get nominated for the Oscars.

It went from being aww-Daaavid to being 'it's-overhyped'.
I swore I'd see it, and I did. Once. It's been some time since so what remains with me are moments and not a full 120 min brain DVR.


Let me put it this way -- It's art house cinema for hard masala addicts used to mainlining Chunnai Express and Dhoom 3 (may their tribe wither), but it's delectable fare for those who like their cinema mildly spiced.

Mildly Spiced believes it was one of the nicest movies to come out in 2013. It's neither pungent nor cloyingly sweet. The flavors come in waves, linger, and then recede. Indeed, they make space for a new development and set up a new emotion. The moments...stay.
Batra allows us a few seconds for the emotions to set in and keeps room for our interpretations too. That is pretty amazing for a rookie Director.


Let's not do a linear review of the story. Lot of people do that for a living. I don't want to snatch another man's livelihood.

What did I like? In random order (contrary to my consulting training of having some logical order to lists)...

1) Bharti Achrekar's acting - You know the lady who lives on the floor above (or a few floors above) Ila? The voice? Aunty -- Mrs. Deshpande? That's her, and she's a well known TV and movie actress. The wonderful thing was that I could her imagine her face and her expressions whenever she delivered a dialogue. That's powerful stuff, being able to create such vivid mental imagery.
It's wonderful how powerfully her character has been fleshed out without ever showing her. So much of her personality is conveyed by her actions (like the instance when she casually mentions that she was busy changing her husband's diaper) or the fact that she had installed a generator so that the fan never ever stops whirring.

2) The notes are a high point. Especially, the notes from Irrfan/Sajaan are abrupt, emotionally void, disconnected, and often unintentionally funny. Ila's messages, on the other hand, are poignant and communicate much for she appears to have many thoughts and emotions to share, but none to share them with.

3) Irrfan Khan has so much to give as an actor and he gives a good deal of himself to this role. He said the role weighed heavily on him for (in his words) it makes a man old to act an old man's character. Irrfan looks old. He looks tired...weary. He seems not to care, and yet he cares when this young man, Nawaz, comes by to inherit his role.
As a food lover, I believe that food can excite many strong emotions inside a person. To see him polish off every dabba, whether it be too salty or spicy, tells the story of a man who has no one to care for him and cook for him with love, and has come to terms with a mediocre dabba as his life's default.
The food and Ila's messages arouse a younger man inside Saajan, and Saajan appears to perk up in spirit if not in body.
These are all changes that Irrfan conveys expertly.

4) Nawaz's role is almost an unnecessary role. One would argue that it can be completely done away with, but he brings a playful vitality, and an uncommon poignancy to Shaikh's character. I feel certain that Shaikh's character was a much smaller role in the original script. Nawaz's acting expanded the scope to do more as the shooting moved on.

5) Nimrit Kaur's is an unexpectedly good performance. She could have so easily brought down a good movie. A few lousy scenes from her and the spell of the movie would be broken. But she conveys all that Ila is -- lonely, vulnerable, seeking companionship and love, strong, giving. She can look ordinary as the woman sitting to start the laundry, and she can look wonderfully radiant when she is going to meet the man that she thinks she is falling in love with.

6) Without saying much about technique, for I am not a technical man in this area, Batra has done a stellar job with writing and directing this story. He has given his actors space to do their thing, and he has felt comfortable leaving pauses and open ends in the story. That is creditable for the natural instinct  is to close loops and open ends.
He also deserves kudos for developing Mrs. Deshpande's character.


For these things and more (that I haven't mentioned), Lunchbox is definitely a Mildly Spiced pick. And it helped that Ila's food looked finger-lickin goood!

Here's to more food-themed movies with a heart for the dabba always holds something special for the aching empty belly.

Sunday Brunch at San-Qi

Those that know me, know that I love my sushi and I love seafood, especially in its more minimally cooked forms. Or uncooked, as the case may be.

I'd heard a lot about the San-Qi Sunday (Essence) brunch. Two floors of pan-Asian food bad-ass-ness. Then there was the fast video on Youtube about the spread, and I saw glass containers filled with crabs, lobsters, tiger prawns, and oysters. There was Peking duck and Galauti kababs. Ready sushi - rolls, nigri, and sashimi. Tall columns of dim sum baskets. All promised a food orgy.


I figured my brain would melt and my tongue would experience flaccid paralysis. Long story short - food porn.
But the price was hefty, and after a year in a weight loss program, my appetite had shrunk. At 3200 pesos (including tax and tip), it may not be a king's ransom, but it's certainly a poor family's food budget for a month. 'Would I do justice to the spread?' had me shrinking back a few times. And then bad throats and random fevers over weekends held me back. Bad ju-ju.

Finally, last week, I made it to San-Qi with my brother-from-another-mother A, missus (we'll call her S), and their lil soup dumpling, Ady. Ady is six, a charmer, and a man of the world. He knows his world food. He knows which side of the toast is buttered and he knows how he likes his pancakes.


Onwards to San-Qi then. The overall space is large and open. The glass facade enables a bright feel with sunlight streaming in. The gazillion bottles for decoration is beginning to feel a bit overdone in 5-star restaurants. I so wish San-Qi was located on a higher floor! Knowing the views that Aer offers, a 33rd floor San-Qi is a very appealing idea.
We dithered between a proper table on the ground level and a sofa in an isolated corner. Ady chose the later. Good choice. Great location. We had a large corner sofa setup for just us 3.5 people and easy access to the staircase to go up to the higher floor.

Many happy faces were clearly there for the champagne portion of the brunch. People were tossing back champagne like it was beer. Veuve Clicquot, I saw.  Not too shabby for a desi place!
We chose the non-alcoholic version (I don't do alcohol when the sun is up) and asked for juice -- watermelon and orange. Watermelon was a meh choice. It soon separated into layers - sludge and water.

The orange juice was a different story. It was fresh, cold, frothy, and did handstands with the citrus flavors. I had 3 glasses through the meal, and a chilled half glass to end the meal.
The taste was very different from the standard Nagpuri mosambi/santra juice. Evidently, San-Qi used imported oranges for the juice. 'Imported' and (hence) expensive matters little. It did matter that the juice tasted stellar.

Initially, A and I recced the counters. Chinese, Indian, and desserts on the ground level. Thai and Japanese on the first floor.
I confess I was a bit torn when I was told that the big urns of cooked seafood from that Youtube video had long been discontinued and that I wouldn't be eating lobster, crab, and fresh shucked oysters that day, but the man-about-town rolls with the punches.

Over the course of the next two to three hours, we hit up pretty much all of the counters save the Indian counter though I did get the tandoori prawns there as an obligatory salute. Were they five star grade? Not really. I think my bai can replicate them and I can do better.

Indian counter -- Total shut-out.

Chinese counter was a source of new experiences and some a-ha moments.

Peking duck with hoisin and plum sauce

I'm not generally inclined to go for duck, but I've heard of the 'Peking duck' ever since I was yew-small and I felt that I had to be responsible and try it, and it was good enough to order twice...or more. For the two-note Indian meat palate, it's not quite chicken and definitely not mutton. It's definitely more bird than bleh-mmehhh, and it went really well with the hoisin and plum sauces. Soft but not quite melt-in-the-mouth soft. The skin had a beautiful crunch to it.



I side-stepped the stir fry counter (though S said the stir-fry veggies were stellar and oh-so-fresh as if they had come in from farm to San-Qi to her plate in an hour flat) to hit the dim sums. The vegetarian ones with mushrooms and assorted veggies appealed to the eye but were mehh to my tongue.

The prawn and the desi sea bass ones, au contraire, were pretty darned good, and deserved repeats.
The sea bass dim sum (in green) was especially good and was quite the winner in the dim sum round.

Sea bass siu mai

Prawn wantons

The chatter was lively at the start of the meal, but it began to fall away as the food piled in from different quarters. Ady was gorging on some spinach noodles, A had ordered two types of lamb (mehh), S had got some grilled chicken, salad, and soup. We trialed, souped, and nibbled on.


The Thai counter had its hits and misses. The cold salads didn't excite me (though vegetarians would love the papaya salad) very much but the green curry was rather fetching, and the tom yum soup was one of the better ones of its kind. Based on spoonful tasters, of course...

Strangely, a cold cuts and cheese platter was located at the Thai counter. Incongruent and ordinary. The cheese were the standard variety -- emmental, edam, cheddar. The cold cuts were standard too -- mortadella, turkey. Nothing special and different becoming of the Four Seasons brand. Parma ham and melon would be more the Four Seasons class.

Papaya salad

The Japanese counter gave me the most joy. They had salmon, tuna, prawn and squid at the sushi counter, and tiger prawns, sea bass, tenderloin at the teppanyaki counter.

The squid was mehh but the salmon and tuna were pretty good. Not the best I've ever had, but good. Make-me-happy-now good. Certainly, head-to-head competition to the sushi at Fifty-five East at the Grand Hyatt.

I had a lot of sushi. A lot. And mostly sashimi. Just pure cuts of fresh fish. Nothing to dilute or adulterate that joy. No rice. No nori. Or needless vegetables. Just good fish.

Gotta say though, the plastic pipettes filled with soy were a pain in the Royal Behind. I felt like a soy addict picking up 3-4 pipettes for every round of sushi. San-Qi, please note.
The tempura shrimp rolls were very so-so. The tuna was the standout. Delightfully fresh.

Squid, salmon, tuna nigri, shrimp tempura rolls, and tuna sashimi

Pipettes reminded me of school labs

Tiger prawns and sea bass teppanyaki counter

The snapper (ceviche?) in the shot glass was a disappointment as was the sea bass from the teppanyaki counter. For a man who loves mildly spiced, it was genuinely tasteless. Like eating thermocol.

Across the board, San-Qi did a reasonably good job with all prawn dishes -- be they in the dim sum, or simple stir fried starters or the best lot was the tiger prawns at the teppanyaki counter.

The dessert room was like drowning in an ocean. So much food to eat but so little to really eat. A and S reached desserts before me and whispered that they were below par for FS quality. From desi to Western, the desserts were pleasing to the eye but mehhh to the tongue. I ate one macaroon and then I drank a small glass of orange juice to kill the strong taste of melted butter.





In compendium, I enjoyed my time at San-Qi, but it had to do more with the good time I had with friends, and watching Ady fuss over his food, and even the pleasure of ogling at the wide variety of foods and PYTs. But, unfortunately, none of the food numbed my senses into submission. Nothing made me gasp, sigh, and want to return with a vengeance. None of the plates made me feel that I'd be willing to pay for them a la carte.
I need add, though, that A and S waxed eloquent about the food. About the quality of the produce and meat. About cooking technique. About the overall experience.

San-Qi needs to bring back it's cooked crabs, lobsters, oysters, and tiger prawns in glass containers, and I will come back in a heartbeat.