It was great fun to attend the MoMo Bangalore. Rishit had an excellent presentation on VAS. He covered the intricacies of the VAS space with respect to GSM, reliance and others. It was great because he covered things in great details and had data to to share. The key take away was that big opportunity lies in reaching the B&W low cost handsets that comprise the rural/semi-urban users. I know its not a great insight but the detailed discussion made it an inescapable fact.
The greater fun was the interaction. This is how a unconference should be. We had a conversation!
The mixing post the talk was good too. It was a lot better than Delhi as there were entrepreneurs everywhere. And there was huge qualitative difference. The entrepreneurs here had feet on ground and knew the stuff they were talking about rather than just unending optimism. Gives me a lot of confidence about India spawning start-ups and about us building a silicon valley like ecosystem here.
Inch is on the 100ft road in Indiranagar right next to Cafe Coffee day. I went in there for the first time as it was vacant compared to CCD and then just fell in love with the place.
It has a very interesting decor. One side had hanging seats with high tables while the other has low wide sofas with low tables. Beanbags for seating outside. They can put them inside too if you ask them to. Wooden floor. Plenty of space in between the seats. Comics lying around. I read an Archie there after a long time!
They have some good salads and pasta. Simple, light and tasty stuff. I’d recommend the Mocha frappe to go with just about everything.
Wish they had wi fi and I could stay for hours. My 1xRTT card is quite slow at its best and i yearn to get back to my hotel’s broadband wi-fi. Still, a great place to hang around.
A definite for every of my Bangalore visits.
Rating: 4.5/5
This one has been long time in pipeline!
Samrat is in backbay reclamation area near Churchgate. Its not as well known as its cousin Status which sees Nariman point flocking to it for lunch. But trust me its a lot better.
Its a medium sized place spread over two floors. One is struck by two things upon entry: most of the patrons are families taking a day out and that there are so many trophys declaring Samrat as the Best Veg restaurant in Bombay! It seems they have won for every year for a fairly long time!
Its a nice clean place with tables packed together and waiters in uniforms bustling about. A glance around will show that Thali is popular and indeed its tough to go wrong with the choice. I would also recommend the Masala Khicdi here. I’m split between the Thali and the Khicdi everytime I come here and just can’t make a decision on the gastronomic criteria. So I take Khicdi when in hurry/when I need to stay light and Thali otherwise. My recommendation for these two should by no means take you away from trying other items on Menu. They’re great too! Its just that I haven’t been able to break myself away from the hold that these two items have over me! I have tried some others when we went in a group and I can tell you that the Tandoori paneer is the best I’ve had anywhere in the world. For dessert, the aamras is incomparable.
I’ll dwell a bit on the thali as its the most attractive option here. Costs Rs 170 a head. The items are the same as any Gujrathi thali. But its vastly superior to any other in two aspects: taste and service. One can keep eating just one or two items and completely immerse oneself into them at the cost of others and still feel satiated. Item to item, samrat beats other gujrathi places hands down. When it comes to service, you feel you have come in a wedding. There may be people lined up and waiting to get in and you may be protesting that you’re filled upto the mouth, the waiters would still implore you to have more! They actually run to get items you haven’t tried lest you run away before they return! Other gurathi thali places like Aaram in Mahim also serve huge amount of food but this service is beyond anything I’ve ever seen.
I can go on and on about Samrat. I have already used more exclamation marks here than all my other posts combined and I can still add more. But suffice it to say that its MUST visit place in Mumbai. Its the benchmark for good quality food as far as I’m concerned.
Rating: 5/5