The Mosaic Tag

When you are terribly stuck at work with no mood to finish anything, and all the priorities madeare totally screwed up, I try and pick up some tag and do justice to this blog.

The last week has been crazy. Juggling between deadlines, that never seem to meet. Friday comes, and I have happily scheduled my next week as I type this out.

The Mosaic Tag is very famous in flickr. And though I dont click, nor have a flickr account, I do gawk at photos. Infact, I have a brave thing for gawking at anything/anyone. Not any more on that.

The rules are pretty simple:

• Type your answer on Flickr search
• Pick an image, from the first page
• Form a mosaic with the images.

I have slightly tweaked the questions, here it goes

1. What is your alter name? Archie
2. What is your favourite food? Brinjal curries and Curd Rice
3. What high school did you go to ? Adarsh Vidyalaya
4. What is your favourite colour ? Blue. But, Black in Clothes.
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Certainly Prithviraj.
6. What is your favourite drink? Masala Tea
7. What is your dream vacation? Santorini, Greece
8. What is the most beautiful place you have lived? Nanyang Valley Apartments @ NTU.
9. What do you love most in life? Books
10. Favorite Dessert? Chocolate Trifles
11. What do you want to be when you grow up? A writer in any form
12. One word to describe you ? Cranky

and here is the picture :)

This post took so much time to go up because I kept changing the pictures. I chose the pig for Archie because the rest were all images of people, and prithviraj is so cute as a caricature. A little dorky, but I dont care!

It is surprising that my answer for what I love most, came as books on my mind. I have always loved reading, but never owned too many books after school. And now, NLB is there and I still do not own too much. I should start buying good ones, but yea...sometime.

Photo Credits from Flickr

1. Archie, 2. Brinjal vegetable, 3. Maharashtra Cadet Corps, 4. Blue, 5. Prithviraj , 6. Masala Tea @ Delhi Railway Station, 7. Santorini, 8. nanyang_valley_3, 9. Read Across America Day, 10. chocolate trifle, 11. Writer's Weapon, 12. PuzzLe !!!

Singapore Veg Healthy Frankie: The Flyin' Bread Review

Note: This place has been closed down.

If you are from Chennai, or actually from Bombay - you will know Tibbs Frankie. It is this awesome bite meal with a tangy, spicy, evil taste that lingers for a while. For long, a trip to besant nagar beach was NEVER complete without a paneer frankie. It is clearly not a healthy meal, with a maida ( plain flour ) based paratha, rolled and served hot with a oily gravy ( not tandoor cooked) filling. Yet, like all unhealthy stuff, it was pretty awesome.

And it was only 35 rupees. Or may be 40. Does not matter.

Come to Singapore,and I forget the frankie. This one is the closest resemblant one can find here. The rolls we get in sandwich stores here are mundane, boring and very sloppy in taste. And yea, i do like subway stuff, but anyone who has had a frankie will find it blasphemous to compare. A random late evening post walk work inside Plaza Singapura got me to The Flyin' Bread.

From the outside, the store looks like any other kiosk.

Image Source here

I noticed a live grill pan and loads of chicken around, and quietly asked if there are any veg options. The man at the counter probably understood I was a lost vegetarian roaming around, and immediately suggested a paneer flyer. I chose a medium one for two reasons - I did not exactly want to hog at 7pm, and later spend the night thinking if I should have dinner or not. Two - I was not prepared for a spit away tofu roll with laden mayo.

Big mistake. The roll was stupendously good. You either make good, soft, delectable paneer or you serve leather shoes. This one was fantastic. It seemed correctly spiced and was rolled well with lots of lettuce ( salad, whatever) and had mint chutney, a dash of something like imli chutney and wrapped in a roomali roti. Yes, not a prata. A roomali.

Image Sources - mailed by Vikram ( the one who owns this place). First pic - Potato Flyer. Second pic - Grilled panneer :)

They also serve set meals with avacado milkshake ( once again, same BIG mistake!) with chocolate on it. The best part is the BBQ idea and indianizing it beautifully with chutneys and flavours. The menu had a lot of offers, I did not bother to look beyond anything when he said paneer. A look on their website also shows this interesting video on how the chef makes the roomali. I did not see the act, but it sure looks nice. That is also why the rolls are called flyers.

Going with the final say,

Excellent branding. I have always loved, loved when small things are told well. Esp, in the food business. A good mix of taste, some neat package deals, convinient location and a great name. Who could have christened it better!

The medium roll costs $6.90. It is not exactly cheap, but it is not expensive either. Would not call it a whole meal as it is a mere binge.

The portions are generous, which makes up for the money in my opinion.

They should consider giving a fork/spoon along with the meal. It is not easy to really bite into the meal, especially for clumsy, multi tasking eaters, like yours truly.

The paper cover got very soggy and dripped along, and hence I had to throw away some sauce. Though it is nice to give in paper, some skill is needed in eating this :)

They have two stalls - one at Plaza Singapura, and another at Somerset. For the complete menu, offers, check here.

P.S :Apparently, their beef and chicken flyer is really nice as well. Do try!

Special thanks to Vikram for being absolutely sweet and mailing the pics, along with the permission to use material from his site.

Hello, Newly Married Friend...

No major offence to anyone who is married. But I cant fathom the sciences behind your obsession to being aunty. And talking to me about marriage. Go away, all of you. The whole full stop you put when you are married pisses me off. Yes, it is that annoying. So what if marriage is the single most defining point in your life? It is not in mine. It will never be in mine, even if I get to marry the cho chweet sweetheart of my life. Live with your munchkin happily, but for sake of my swear words, do not bother naive (!) singles like me.

What is even worse is that you go around telling stories to people on why no one above the age of 24 should be single. Did you just forget that the day before your wedding, you came and stood like a fool about tying that saree? Damn, no one learns to master wearing the saree even for eons after marriage. I am yet to learn manage a duapatta. But at least, I do not sit like a doll when I dress up.

Have i told you how much fun it is to have own reading time? Or own walking time? Just because a truck load of girls have decided to hand over the remote control of their lives to their munchkins, it does not mean womanhood has lost powers of self existence.

Though, I have a bunch of best friends who are married and yet cool. Or, to be married and even cool about it. That is the way to live. This business of two bodies one heart is filmy. Get over it. It is filmy even for me.

Marriage is important, its fun and probably everyone (including me) will enjoy it.But to go one step ahead and act like it is the coolest thing to do at 24 is no joke. It is annoying to everyone, even to your families.

Grumpy post, bear with me. My vent blog :P