The Tea Junction

Had met Farida Ahmed, R K, Vineeth, Love, Mehul, Ekta and others at The Third Line for a great artistic event known as the Pecha-Kucha (see www.pechakucha.org for more information). Separate blog post on that!

After the event was over, all of us headed over to Movenpick Hotel, Oud Metha for a cuppa tea. Now the place we were headed to was not in the hotel, but actually a new tea serving joint that opened barely 4 days ago. 

Welcome to Dubai and the world - "Tea Junction". Congratulations Shanil - you have the makings of a great hangout joint :)

The place looks great - nice earthy warmth emanating from the environment in the cafe, great decor, comfy sofas, good music, and a tea menu that will leave you spell bound. This cafe can serve you a drink to suit your fancy - any tea in the world, in addition to coffees, iced teas, and tea based mocktails!! His food menu is just as impressive and the quality of food is fabulous!

I had a Moon chai - which is the foreign version of what Mumbaiiyas call a "Paani Kum" literally meaning less water. The tea was brewed to perfection.. great flavour - without the sugar, the sweetness of the leaves used was filtering through nicely! Fragrance was nice, and milk was just right in quantity. I savoured the tea - and I wanted to drink some more!!

Does it drill a hole in your pocket?? Hell no - 7 of us, 7 chais's, 1 omlette (which Mehul said was "nice"), 1 BBQ turkey on a bun - which was nicely assembled and looked nice when served. I was too hungry to be patient to photograph it when it was served. I just gobbled it all in. All this was 65 AED!! Considering the serving size and the place we were in - it seemed reasonable. The food was satisfactory in quantity and flavour, and the chai's are priced just right :)

A few more photographs taken by Farida can be seen here.

A few additions are expected to the joint in the near future, and I wish Shanil and his team a bright and prosperous future with The Tea Junction.

I know I am going back soon - will you join me??

See the full gallery on posterous

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A great dinner at D'Fusion with twitter friends

A long long time ago, the "Twitterati's" had participated in a Quiz at the newly launched Spiralz Bar in The Grandeur Hotel, Al Barsha. There was rejoicing on the night as we sang into the wee hours of the morning! We had won, and as spoils of this winning we had a voucher to feast on the cuisine of the restaurant named D'fusion! The winning team then were: Nikhil Soneja + friend, Nick Theregos, Vivienne Strettle, Shahveer, Mehul Paul and me

And so we decided to dine. While the dining party consisted mostly of the people who were at the quiz, there were a few changes. Barring for for Nikhil's then +1, replacing him tonight was Grant (from Scotland [yes, he has a kilt {which he wears from time to time (not gonna delve into more details here)}]) and Vivienne's charming husband, Ken :)

And feast we did!! While the background music was way too loud for us to converse naturally, we decided to bring the roof down with unnatural conversation. The topics circled around sex, being gay, technology, Joomla vs Wordpress, Tron - which barely lasted 10 seconds and moved into the origin of computers :) :), and a plethora of other topics. We made fun of the fusion names on the menu - read: Nutty Buddy (mehul, how could you have had that??), Banana Bellefonte (i had that), Dum(b) Lasagne (poor plate of food never stood a chance against nick), Vodka Paani Puri (remind to never have that again) among other things!!

The food quality on the other hand was pretty good and the portions were fine! 

Attached photos of the event :) - Vivienne and Mehul had taken more pictures!!

Enjoy!

Partha

Vivienne (@karenpendragon) and Mehul (@mehulpaul)


Grant - The scottish friend of Nikhil Soneja


This is Mehul (@mehulpaul)


Nick Theregos (@theregos) and how is normally is ;)


Nick smiles at a joke while Ken poses for a pic. Ken is Vivienne's husband :)


This is Nikhil Soneja (@nikhilsoneja)

You may know her - Vivienne (@karenpendragon)

See the full gallery on posterous

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Why would you want to do that to me?

Its true! When Walt Disney announce a movie related to the fantasy-world - I expect glamour, glitz, great production and a bomb of a movie. Which is what Tron: Legacy - the movie (in 3D) is... NOT!! In fact, Tron: Legacy - the movie is the absolute opposite of what every quintessential Disney movie promises. In fact even this movie promised that exact same value through all it's promotions and stills.

 I am sorry - I am not going to sugar coat this. The Movie sucked! BIG TIME!! While the basic premise had a lot of promise, the concept of the game was fabulous, the actual movie flow sucked. 

The acting was bad. I mean the 6th grade students who acted with me in my School Play (we performed "Oliver!") acted better than the actors who got paid quite a bit actually. It was just not convincing enough. The lead hero, TRON (lets face it - the movie is named Tron!!) - got no screen time to speak of. His introduction was strictly "MEH"!! The characters could have done with some tweaking and a better introduction - Except Clue (the villain) nothing made sense to me!

The graphics were decent... not mind blowing. Like I said before - I invested 50 dhs and 2 and a half hours of my life into the 3D version of this movie + 30 dhs for the TRON snack pack (which by the way - is way cooler than the movie itself) and I somehow left the theater unsatiated! The 3D trailer for Kung Fu Panda was so much more invigorating!! (lol)

Michael Sheen as a cameo star was a waste!! Poor chap - he really did bring some life to the otherwise dull movie.. which was based on the premise of a light filled world (talk about oxy-morons ;) pun fully intended )

Thankfully most of the merchandise barring Nokia's N8 and the promotion deals are flowing through to the game - which is EONS better than the movie. I had a sneek peek at the game and its quite intense!!

Here is the trailer for you... If you have to go watch it - I recommend regular 2D version for less investment on a completely rubbish movie...

(adding this section on Dec 27, 2010)
Just saw TRON: the original one - (circa 1982) after my friend, Jeetendra suggested I should. Here is the trailer:



I just lost an additional hour and a half of my life watching this movie!!! The movie was very futuristic for it's time. The story was lost on me! I just could not understand it! The graphics for the 1982 movie seemed far better than the 2010 edition if that is any better. Jeff Bridges' ham acting was better in the '82 movie for sure. The characters had ABSOLUTELY no introduction. I had no idea who I was looking at and who was saying what!! Damn - misdirection to the core.

I looked up Wikipedia to understand the thought behind the movie. While the premise of the movie seemed futuristic and was probably thought through - it failed to reach out to me... What I don't understand is, Is the movie about a software programmer trying to prove that he invented 5 games? Or is it about the creation of an alternate universe as suggested in Tron: Legacy?? Or did one lead to the other? And how did that actually come about? And why is the movie called Tron when the lead character is really Flynn? Because lets face it: Alan / Tron hardly have any role to play in either movie!!

I still like the game though and someday soon, you shall see a review of that as well.

Cheers,

Partha

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Sports for the gamer dude!

Since I have arrived in Dubai, the one thing that I have been re-introduced to (and I missed doing), is console gaming. I recently got my hands on a copy of EA's FIFA 2011 for the DS.

Here is what the cover looks like:

The loading screen for the game is the same as the PS2, but faster. The game play is easy to pick up if you are playing it for the first time. The quality of graphics is decent. Its clean and despite having a small screen the DS renders the images rather sharply and there is no strain on the eyes. Having briefly tried a previous version of FIFA on the older PSP, I find that the DS has infinitely better graphics.

Back to the game! Cut scenes leave a lot to be desired, but in the actual game, the AI is getting tougher to beat with every new release. With tougher computer players to beat, the game is great fun to play, and the contentment of beating the AI is great.

There are the standard game play options of Manager Mode - where you become the manager of either a team that you create or you lead an existing team to victory through many tournaments. All the possible leagues and teams from across the world are covered - with names, game play styles and everything! If you have a DSi or the DS XL, then you could use the in-built camera to create a single pro player in your own image. You could use wifi connectivity to create multi-player environments within your network of friends who have a DS and the game. There are many mini games as well that use the touch functionality of the DS really well and are a lot of fun to play.

These mini games also reflect the game play technique used in the main game. Free Kicks near the goal, Penalties and Dribbling skills are tested in each of the mini games across 5 mini games.

Great game play and of course managing your own team where you could have your face as one of the key players is all great incentive to own this game on a DS and play it. I know I would.

Here is the Official FIFA 2011 Trailer:



Of course the trailer was for the Sony PS3, but the game AI on the DS is similar to the PS.

I would rate this game as follows:

Game Play: 4 / 5
Graphics: 3.5 / 5
Interaction: 4.5 / 5
Mini Games: 4.5 / 5
Overall value: 4.25 / 5

*The opinions expressed in this blog post are mine and mine alone. I do not wish to impose my opinion on anyone and I implore you to try the game despite my review.

For Bouquets and Brickbats, please email me at partha@parthasrinivasan.com
Partha Srinivasan, Publicity Consultant

Stranded on an island alone, you're allowed 5 items (ppl not included) what would they be?

Stranded on an island alone, you're allowed 5 items (ppl not included) what would they be?

Answer here

TEDxDubai - Photograph Flickr Set

Good Day,

I attended TEDxDubai on 04-Dec-2010. What an event!! Reminds me of the Tata Jagriti Yatra in many ways.

Here are some of the photographs below. 

Have fun seeing them. (Detailed blog post to follow)

	Hi Partha N S! 58018714@N00.jpg?1213341359#58018714@N00" border="0" height="24" width="24" /> Partha N S (Partha Srinivasan) shared a Flickr set with you. TEDxDubai 2010 REBOOT 26292765@N04.jpg?1285613602#26292765@N04" border="0" height="24" width="24" /> A set by giorgiotedx » You can also view all 25 items as a slideshow Don't want to receive messages from Flickr members via email? Change your notification settings. To report abuse, click here. Your use of Flickr is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the Flickr Community Guidelines

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