Restaurant Review: Nara Thai

I'm a bit of a misfit food-lover, I am!

When they ask 'teekha ya medium?' I say Mildly Spiced.

When they ask 'arrabbiata or alfredo?' I say Pesto.

When they ask 'Thai Curry. Red or green?' I say Yellow. 

Hang onto that thought for a few minutes.

KA Hospitality seems to be creating a basket of all that is good and wholesome about Asian food and bringing it to our shores, and the effort is very welcome.

I bumped into Nara a few days before it opened to the mango people (such as yours truly) and decided that the new place had to be explored godspeed. 

Thus it came to pass that my dependable friend, Dr Watson, and I ventured into this establishment on a lazy Saturday afternoon for a bite of lunch, sans a reservation. The sweet young lady at the reception informed me with a warm smile that they were completely booked and a table absolutely could not be had. So I made the best puppy face I could to which she reacted with horror 'Stop! Stop! This is more scary than cute. Let me see what I can do'.

The trick worked...just not in the way I had hoped for. After a 20 min wait, we were seated at a table for two. It was a busy afternoon, to be sure! Girl friends, wealthy-ladies-that-lunch, scandalous EMA relationship chatter, the works.

Watson and I have been there a second time, since.

Nara combines purple upholstery and 1920s wicker Insta-Boomerang-friendly pankhas and modern chic furniture into an incoherent whole that somehow still works and the service is, for most parts, efficient and friendly. 

Ah yes, Watson! The food. That's what we're here for.

So...why and how do lightly battered crisp-fried water spinach (aka morning glory) leaves taste so bloody good with a chili lime chutney is beyond me? This gave us one of those wow moments and Watson gaped at me wide-eyed, 'I say, Holmes! Look how stiff they are. It's rigor mortis. And yet...how atrociously delightfully tasty!'

The Thai yellow curry with chicken and butterfly pea rice enthrall the senses. Every spoonful of the yellow curry is sheer ecstasy. While the regular Thai food junta battles between the red and the green curry for wins, my favorite, by far, is the yellow curry (cue 'loop to intro para'). The curry itself is so bloody good, and the purple rice with fried cashews so satisfying, the chicken just shrugs and retreats into a corner, dejected and defeated.

The red curry, though entirely wholesome and flavorful, plays second fiddle to the yellow version but the silken tofu in the red is an absolute standout and impossibly delightful.  

The butterfly pea iced tea is a revelation. It combines herby, citrus and flowery in a way that perfumes the nose and cools the palate.

These are the real winners at Nara. The kitchen has an absolute A-game going with the sauces and the curries. Bomb flavor. Bomb punch. The facial muscles slacken, the lips part into a smile and eyes shutter down. 

Fried Morning Glory with chili lime dip with minced prawns

Thai yellow curry with brown jasmine rice

Thai red curry. The silken tofu is awesome!

Butterfly pea iced tea. Delightful~

Unfortunately, Nara still has a weak game dealing with meat and seafood, and that's a problem.

The crispy shrimp cakes (or kolambi medu wada, as the Thai people call it) are elevated by a beautifully poised chili-ginger-honey sauce. If you want juicy chunks of shrimp with every bite, then this is not the dish for you.

Crispy shrimp cakes

The chicken chunks were more tightly wrapped in the pandan leaves than a grandma running a marathon in a sari that never comes undone once. Though the flavor and char click well, the meat's too tough on the knife and chew.

The Thai omelette with crabmeat is an unctuous belly filler and possibly a revelation for those with an abiding passion for greasy Irani cafe omelettes. There was enough grease in there to create an oil slick.

Chicken in pandan leaves

Thai omelette with crabmeat

The chili lime sauce-bath that the steamed John Dory filets come lounging in is at once enticing and noxious for how stingingly green chili-heavy it is and the John Dory is two tads overdone. George C. would have sweated a bucket with a wee taste of the sauce.

John Dory lounging in a seriously chili-ed up sauce

The panna cotta is a coconut milk-based one and doesn't quite perform the sensual 'Dance of the Panna Cotta' like Silk Smitha does, but what it lacks in ze moves, it makes up with taste. The thick thai tea sauce is a weak partner. Possibly a citrusy butterfly pea compote might make for a more worthy combination?

Panna cotta sans the dance

The place is not inexpensive for the damages are significant, north of 2,000 quid pax sans alcohol on each occasion.

Nara would do well to examine how it is working with protein if it hopes to compete on an even footing with its older sibling next door, for Yauatcha has a serious A-game even in downtime!

Review (movie): Suraj Ka Saatvan Ghoda

The only way to find a movie like this is to travel into the past and search in the old grimy chest for many obvious reasons: society's form has changed so dramatically that it would be difficult to find this kind of behavior in this specific format in the current era and even if such pockets exist, there is no movie-maker of skill that would have any interest in narrating a story like this in a manner like this.

The movie starts with a young raconteur narrating to a small group of friends who come together for dark rainy Allahabad evenings filled with brooding stories told with a lot of social commentary. Stories that pause for comments and brief discussions and chai. The young man (played brilliantly by Rajit Kapur) suggests that the end of most love stories is obvious and has to be told within the context of the social environment and the class struggles.

He narrates a series of love stories associated with three women: Jamuna, Lily and Satti; women that were associated with him in his younger years. The movie is a bit like a Mobius strip. As you move onto another day and another story and begin to believe it is a new story, you reach a point encountered previously in an earlier story.

Books deal brilliantly with simultaneous events; an area where movies tend to suffer. Shyam Benegal ably stitches the stories together so that the seams don't show. The 50s touch of cojone-less-lily-livered-hero surviving-heroine is very evident in this story as well.

The movie throws up a number of utterly believable flawed characters from the complexed Tanna to his womanizer father, Maheswar Dalal, and from the very complex Jamuna to the interesting nameless narrator-friend and, finally, the protagonist himself, Manek.

The movie makes the viewer think at many different levels: We saw what happened before. We saw the result. What really happened in-between? Why did the character do that? How much of what Manek was narrating fact versus fiction?

Thankfully, Benegal doesn't leave the viewer thinking too much about 'what happened' but provides a lot of food for thought about character motivations and fact versus embellishment, and therein lies the beauty of this movie.

Also, what's with the name? Suraj ka Saatvan Ghoda?
The Sun God's chariot is pulled by seven white horses (days of the week, one presumes) and the seventh one represents the future and hope. Another interpretation is that the seventh is also the youngest, and likely the slowest. A group moves only as fast as the slowest member of the group.

What is your interpretation of the title? And of the movie itself? I'd love to hear.

Shatranj Ke Khiladi: Movie Review

During a recent conversation with a few friends, a few movie names cropped. Movies not watched. A few movies 'before our time' or too bland or too serious, and movies that we now read the synopsis of and go 'Hmmm! That actually sounds pretty interesting'.

This is an attempt to dig up some of those names.

The first movie happened yesterday night during an extended bout of insomnia.

'Shatranj Ke Khilade'
I had learned to fear the name Satyajit Ray. Only Bengalis, old people, and artsy movie types watched his movies, or so I had believed.
It is the story of two friends who spend a brief phase of their generously funded span between birth and death playing chess with each other. A new-found love that soon turns into an obsession making them seek out a quick-fix game even in the most inopportune moments, like two lovers breathlessly making out in the plane lavatory.
The story is set in the waning period of Wajid Ali Shah's reign in Awadh as the Brits are posed to nudge him away from the throne. The level of fatalism and Nero level fiddling even as India burnt is instructive in explaining how the British were able to hold sway over this vast country.
There is some tehzeeb-bhara humor; humor, a quality I had not ascribed to Satyajit Ray. It is not the kind of humor that makes you laugh out loud, but it provides the kind of haw moment when a very serious adult cracks a mischievous joke. It is pleasant for how unexpected it is.
The movie also shows that not every addiction is related to substance abuse and addicts of any kind can be jugadu-max to get a fix.
Of the cast, Sanjiv Kumar is expectedly brilliant and is a treat to watch, Saeed Jaffrey is competent but the unexpected moments come from Amjad Khan. To see Gabbar Singh as an effeminate pudgy Wajid Ali Shah is just mind-bending!

Mildly Spiced Verdict: Must watch.For the typical 2017 audience, this might be too offbeat, but it might come as a surprise that a movie can entertain without Yo Yo songs and cabled slow-mo stunts

Review: Chocolat

Given the recent scarcity of stories rich in narrative and metaphor, alike, one turns to the closet of decades past, searching for a gem hidden between the planks.

Chocolat is that story sublime.

Vianne Rocher (possibly a relative of Ferrero?) is a single mother who moves with the gusty North winds and takes her daughter along, from village to village, until she reaches Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, an orthodox French town led by the local Mayor-Count de Raynaud. Vianne is an atheist, unwed mother and Comte Raynaud a deeply religious traditionalist who seeks to maintain the sway of religious tradition. A stand-off is inevitable and forms the core of this story, albeit dipped liberally in chocolat.
You could think of Vianne as the chocolat whisperer. 

This isn't a murder mystery and the result of the stand-off has an agreeable conclusion, but what pleases the soul is the manner in which the climax is reached with believable grace.

While, on the surface, the movie is an ode to the almost-sinful attraction of chocolat, it speaks in metaphors at many levels. Of restraint-celebrating religiosity against free-willed joy-worship. Of inclusiveness against exclusiveness. Of anchors against drifting. Of passion. Of companionship. And, yet, the movie works as a story well-told. It doesn't overtly pontificate though it's clear which side it favors.

Judi Dench as Armande, the eccentric old landlady, Juliette Binoche as Vianne and Al Molina as Comte Raynaud dazzle and make this movie worth watching. 

My favorite scene was Al Molina that early Easter morning. Piece de resistance!

Mildly Spiced verdict: 4/5. Must watch. Three thumbs up.

Review: Trapped (Hindi/Bollywood)

I've waited for a good movie like I've waited for the rains, and just as the petrichor has perfumed the city, thus has this movie lit up my weekend.

The central theme of the story is extremely simple. A man in love leaves his shared digs in a hurry and takes up a low rent situation on the 35th floor of an otherwise completely uninhabited skyrise. A series of events unfold and the man finds himself physically trapped in his own apartment with all vital resources running low.

As morning turns to night and to the next morn, Shaurya (Rajkummar Rao) turns from obvious methods of escape to some rather innovative ones and as the days go on, innovation gives way to desperation.

A plausible and gripping script, competent acting and tight editing is what it takes for a one-person drama to work, and Trapped works. It slowly picks up in tempo as Shaurya's desperation begins to rise. The confidence of the Director (Vikramaditya Motwane) shows in that there are no spoken dialogues to convey what Shaurya feels or plans to do. 'Show, not tell' is how he goes about it.

Also, for a movie of this nature to work, there has to be reasonable plausibility, and the theme is an obvious trigger of a sense of implausibility, but the script and the Director deal with that aspect with a deft touch. I dealt with my 'This doesn't make sense' pretty quickly and was pulled into Shaurya's world on that 35th floor, feeling for him, grimacing, wincing and even smiling at every small victory.

In terms of emotions evoked, Trapped is a Castaway meets Hurt Locker.

MS Verdict: Must watch. Three thumbs up. Major kudos to Messrs. Rao n Motwane

Review: Muramba (Marathi)

"Muramba...cha.khay.chi ghaai nako. Muru de na jara"

The lyrics from the title song provide some solid advice but fail to implement it for the home effort. As my Ajji would have said 'Raja, jikde pikta tikde wikat nahi'

The movie starts with a break-up and ends with one of the two possible outcomes (#NoSpoilerAlert). Everything in between is a serio-comic effort by the boy's parent set to engineer a patch-up. Dialogues, artificial and eager-to-tickle, fail more often than they work. On the fair-balance side, there are at least a few easy chuckles with the Puneri marathi dialogues.

The male lead, Alok (Amey Wagh), is supremely irritating. Whether it is Amey doing a bangin' good job of coming across as irritating per demands of the role or if that's how acts is a judgment that I have no desire to make, but he makes me want to tell the girl 'Good job! Run! Don't turn back! His parents birthed him. They're stuck with him. You? You have an option!'

The gravest injustice is dealt to Mithila Palkar, an adorable child-woman, who can do so so much more but is made to grimace and sigh through most of the movie.

The parent-set of Sachin Khedekar and Chinmayee Sumeet put in an ernest effort and do something the spawn seems unable to, perform and entertain.

Overall, the movie is handicapped by lack of depth, poor development of characters, and a basic inability to make 'me' care for the lead character.


Note: YG's Ma and Dad are likely to find this movie reasonably entertaining.

Review: Chi Va Chi Sau Ka

You watch the trailer of this movie and you want to watch the movie. It is that promising. Also, after a long drought on the Marathi movie scene, even a stray cloud promises welcome showers.

Unfortunately, the trailer parcels most of the tastiest morsels from the movie. Beyond that, it's mostly plastic dabba, butter-paper, brown-paper.

The pitch is promising but the movie doesn't keep up to the promise. It infuriates to deceive.

On the positives. No songs! That's good!
There is a ton of funny repartee that would provoke anything from a grin to a satisfying cackle and a few characters have cracked their roles to perfection. Satya (the lead) has a whip sharp funny with-it grandma and a father who is unintentionally very funny. Savi, too, has a crazy funny younger brother who is way over-the-top but carries it off well.

Unfortunately, the liberal sprinkling of laughs is unable to salvage a badly executed movie. Many of the scenes ought to be cut by the censors simply for the decibel levels.

The bigger tragedy, here, is the waste of an interesting theme. A girl from a conservative background suggesting that she wants a trial live-in relationship with the boy before she goes aye-nay. This, by itself, is an idea worthy of being explored down a few interesting routes, but this movie stays so superficial that it barely grazes the skin, never mind digging down and peeking into the soul of what might make a semi-arranged relationship tick.

Even with a generous 2h10 runtime, it seems like the movie never gets time to dive deep enough to understand what makes the couple fall in love with each other, walk away from each other, and in double-quick time, get back with each other.

Coming from the man who has directed Harishchandrachi Factory and Elizabeth Ekadashi, it seems that directing a serio-rom-com is an art that's a lot more difficult to pull off than most people would give it credit for.

I'll say (with multiple caveats)...watch it. Maybe. On TV. DVR. FF the loud scenes.