Food to spice up your memories!

The previous post in this series is here..

If you are in Banff and feel like having great food, just hit Indian Curry house. I am not saying it because it is a desi place. It is just great food, period!

We were lucky to try this place out on day 1. It is not on the ground floor with a view of the restaurant from teh street. This is on the top floor of the main storefront with shops. We did not know what to make of the staircase we had to climb between two souvenir shops to get there at first.

Ok, the bear is a distraction for this post.. but it happened to be right at the entrance.. Banff seems to have these bears for kids to take pictures with at every popular spot. Every visitor center has one of these.

We were welcomed with a smile even though there were lots of groups waiting. We were lucky it was only the two of us. So "Table for two" was easy. We took a corner spot.

The view from the windows with the snow covered peaks was something! We had literally just reached Baff from Calgary and we were still getting used to the fact that all places in Banff have amazing views! 

The service was nice. We asked for some hot masala Chai asap as we did not know how long it would take for the food to show up. The guy asked us if we want extra ginger in it. Our first thought was "are you guys for real? please.. thanks for asking!". The Chai did not disappoint after that long flight and drive!

The food came reasonably fast.. the best part was the taste. I think this is the happiest photo of me in the trip.. 

The butter naan and paneer butter masala are the best I have tasted in the last 5 years. Truly mouth watering. They got the smoky flavor in the butter paneer just right!  Given this is a favorite dish by which I measure places by, this restaurant is somewhere up there in my ranking!

We loved this place. San usually wants to try out different cuisines in new places.. if the food was not this great, we would have switched to Italian, Mexican, Thai, Chinese, etc. over next few days..probably in that very order.. But given she loved the chaat, on day 2 after we came back from a long journey, we just stopped right here. This time we tried daal and butter rotis and rice and a lot more chai. We even took some parathas to go for the next mornings hike as we had a 4:30 AM start. That was amazing as well.

We wanted to ask about the owner after we had the food and he came and talked to us. He has been doing this for 12 years. Turns out the owner is a south Indian guy by the name of Vivek. We had a nice chat with this guy and he gave us some tips on other places to see on the last day out on the way out of Banff and his entire staff was very nice! 

We never thought we would find a place like this in Banff with amazing desi food. San thinks I was pampered on this trip in every way, and she is right!

The best thing I have to thank her for on this trip is finding this place! I am still drooling thinking of that paneer butter masala..

Next time we visit Banff, know where I am headed, right after checking into the hotel!

Strongly recommend this place! 

ps. If you are a group of 8+, don't extrapolate the time based on our experience. Larger groups were waiting outside to be seated for 30 mins. If you are group of 4 or less, you can get in and out pretty fast!

pps. if you have food allergies, you can tell the folks here and they accomodate. Another big plus, at least for me!

What is not to like?

Finally managed to watch Dilwale this afternoon. It was as high on my watch list as the Star Wars movie. There was really only one reason I wanted to watch this movie. It was a  Shah Ruck Khan movie.

One needs to have a certain mindset to watch an SRK movie.. don't expect much of a plot for starters. Expect very predictable twists and turns. Great visuals and a background score that goes with the visuals, SRK hamming his way through the movie with the few scenes where he is actually doing more comic timing than anything else. 

The hopeless romantic in me always comes home humming the background tune from the movie and this one is no different. 

SRK movies for me have become the equivalent of Nat King Cole songs for baby boomers or so I am guessing. Somewhere some neurons fire in your brain and make connections between the past and present and you get all emotional for reasons that you cannot quite put a finger on. 

Don't understand why people were working hard to set my expectations really low for this movie. Yes, SRK and Kajol do look a little ridiculous in some scenes trying to pass for folks a good 20 years less than their age, and in this day of special effects they could have spent some more effort to make those scenes look natural but it was just another SRK movie. 

The locations in Iceland for the song "Gerua", where Kajol is running on a black beach in a yellow nine yards saree (it has to be at least nine yards), were just breathtaking! See for yourself..

Need to add every place on the backdrop to our travel list. The gold threaded designer sari that Kajol was wearing will be the next big hit for Dilwali.

As for me, I am happy as Yoda, still humming.. 

Leaf review

A short video that pretty much explains the driving experience so far..

Very quiet drive in a small car. 

So far have gotten used to knowing all local distances so the whole "what if we just end up with a dead battery somehwere?" phobia is gone.. for everyone in the family.

We are also keeping to approximately 50 miles or less a day. 

The kids love the ride and San is slowly tempted to at least go Hybrid...

So, in short, the Leaf has done its job!

Goooooooooo "ARGO"

Watched ARGO last night after the kids went to bed. 

In case you have not seen it.. go see it. Ben Affleck does an outstanding job of directing this edge of the seat suspense movie, if you can call it that because you know what is going to happen in the end but he still made you come to the edge of the seat and wish you had not drunk that extra bottle of water before coming to the movie theater!

A few things that stood in my mind other than all those facts already mentioned in the reviews?

The background score for one. There are two places in the movie where the song just starts off in the background and just soars. The Knopfler guitar solo from "Sultans of Swing" and Zeppelin's "When the Levee breaks, there is no place left to go".. they were brilliantly placed. Brought you back memories of early eighties, and the words made a few connections in the brain which fit the situation.

The second thing was the look and feel of the movie. They had taken great pains to bring a late seventies feel to the movie, right from the lighting to the clothes to the landmarks. Truly amazing!

Ben Affleck truly shines as a director. Eagerly awaiting his next directorial effort!

A new found respect for Christian Bale

One of the perks of being married to an IBM'er in Silicon Valley is the twice a year or so special screening of blockbuster movies for employees and family.

San got us tickets to watch The Dark Knight Rises for a 9:30-Noon special screeing.

We stood in line from 8 to get nice seats and am still replaying some stuff from the movie in my head as this post is being typed.

What a movie! Beats every other movie that we have watched in the last two years hands down.

Christian Bale actually gives this character life. Saw that most reviews say he could have done better. His performance was as good as if not better than all the other heavyweights who make you feel something deep down in your bones. Seriously, it takes a lot of talent to hold your own with Oldman, Freeman and Caine.

Bale pulled it off in style.

We did not feel the time go by.True entertainment!

Hats off to Nolan.