Bukara Grand Opening

Finally the d-day arrived! What once started as a day dreaming concept by hum-panch on the Wa-bar drinking session became a reality today. Bukhara- Indian Grill and Lounge made its mark on the Shanghai fine dining scene today. Whole of shanghai Indian community came trooping and danced till midnight on foot thumping bollywood numbers. As usual Raja bhai took the centre stage followed by Manish ,Bhavisha, Preetiji and a very flexible argentinian middle aged baldy who showed what dancing was all about. The spacious expanse coupled with the nice ambience of the place wowed everyone present. Food was par excellence esp. the Biriyani and the mutton curry -rounded up with hot jalebis and gulab jamuns. Guess what the most amazing transformation was - DD moving around sober without a glass in hand and taking care of all the guests. Aisa bhi hota hai!! Slideshow

Taranya's 8th Birthday

On with the theme birthday parties. 25th was a sat..so called a few friends and kid and had "Sports" as the theme for the birthday. Running race, hula hoops, potato race, skipping etc was entusiastically performed not only by kids but also elders. Now for lesson chinese creativity. T gave an order at the M cake shop for the birthday party. She took the print out of a picture from a website called "clipart.com" to give to the cake shop for copying it on the top of the cake. " the prinout had a footer mentioning clipart.com. Here is what they delivered :-)

Bukhara Nan! ( 2' x 1')

Kriti and Taranya went for a grande tour of Bukhara, under construction. They found the Kitchen to be very interesting especially the its huge tandoor ovens.. So much so...Nidhi got inspired and wrote this poem..

" I Visit the Kitchen the Indian

bread flapping up and down

I visit the party time floor

so warm and nice still still

getting build still have much to do

so nice and warm and

so beautiful and soft

which restorant have you

explord the best?"

Holi 2006

Holi 2006
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan.

Indian kitchen Jinqiao was the venue for this year holi action. Luckily it was a bright and sunny day so the gathering was more than expected. IK pulled out all the stops to make it a success. Rangoli competiton drew participants from 4 to 40 year old. babita's ganeshji! was the best!

Nimi's First Birthday Bash

Third March (Tata's Founder Day), is also coincidentally, Nimi's birthday. Celebrated both the events at the corner coffee shop, OK Pie with friends and office colleagues. Nimi's mobile phone shaped cake with Priti's delicious home made brownie cake, were lapped up by the invitees. IK's food quality ( esp rogan josh) was worth mentioning. Amidst all the hulla gulla...nimi went off to sleep..

Pizza Salad!

Pizza Salad!
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan.

Guess, the unlimited, all you can eat salad bar at the pizza hut is one of the main reason for its success in shanghai. Today, at the huai hai lu outlet, witnessed a teenager making, what must be the biggest salad tower. Some of the females there were quite envious of this feat and set about trying to break the record while the poor pizza hut manager looked on.

Cindrella Ball

Nehal ben raised the birthday bar in Shanghai with the Cindrella bday bash. Kings, Queens, prince and princesses. Could not resist and crashed in with Tuhina to check out what was going...amazing. Check it out..

Munich

Got hold of an original copy of 'Munich'..Am a fan of Steven Spielberg and this movie which has won a couple of Oscars in 2005, is not one of SS's best. The movie is technically brilliant and forces one to take a re-look at the times and events which took place during and after the munich olympics.

Blue Frog

Blue frog Restaurant on the Hong Mei Lu boasts of the best Blue Burger in the town. One BF Burger is enough to sustain you for the whole day. One of the few joints which has a toddlers bar ( 'lil frog).

Cocktail Evening

Cocktail Evening
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan.

Priti with the first concoction of Bukhara!

Salaam Namaste!!!

Are mere priya mitroonn.
Hum vahi purane Satish aur Jyothi hain... Its only that we are a bit caught up in resettling ( which these people call it with pride as..we do our home this weekend !)at this new place. Finally last week we have got all our household goods in its right places. Now ..get all set for a barrage of mails and photos....
Harbin photos were simply superb..I was waiting eagerly to see the massage photos...Tipa drinking wine,Raja dancing on the snow, Shireesh taking pictures of the stars, Lok thumbing on his palmtop( Hope he must have graduated to this new toy by this time),Aditi driving the van and Priti yelling at my dear Rishabh !!
Ha!ha! we REALLY REALLY miss all these fun moments, gossip times, daaru sessions, ragging times...
Kahan aa gaye yaar ?!! Chalo aaap log yahan aana shuru karo..to fir hum iss desh ko bhi...Shanghai Indu galli bana dete hain !!
Cheers
Satish

Harbin!

Chinese New Year in Harbin is like icing on the cake. The lantern festival and snow monuments in this 'little moscow' city is touted as a must see in china. So here we go....check out the regular updates here...from the road...live!

Moon River Diner!

For those desirous of having an American cuisine ( there is one!), Moon River Diner, is the right place to go... as we did. It was full on a working day after noon also and we waitied a while to be seated. Try out the Maharani Taco veggi salad and Chilli Italian chow! fab...The menu has some interesting tid-bits which you can read while waiting for the food....MRD's claim, they make everything on the plate from scratch...!

60P50062.jpg
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan.

ID26 in Shanghai

ID26 in Shanghai
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan.

First time in four years, the indian community had an 'open house' flag hoisting at the consulate at loushanguan lu. Kids and parents savoured the unfurling of the tiranga. Hope that the tradition is maintained in years to come...

Shubhkamnayein

Namashkar aur Ganatantra divas ki bahut shubh kamnaayein.

 

To all in shanghai and also to them in the US who seem to have forgotten that they have resided in a city called shanghai in the other end of the world.

 

Shanghai vaasis,

dont you all feel that the conversion from a shanghainese to a amrreeki was very fast,notably since jo who was so prompt with the net/mail  seems to have done the vanishing act from the cyberworld.

Hum to aise bhi kuch khaas nahi hain communications ke maamle mein , par jyoti ben aap to aise na the????

 

Or to take things positively I think Jo is taking a much neededbreak from US (i e , humlog, not united states) and shanghai talk.Not being critical but it is healthy to do so, as long as you revert back to your original communications manager side.

 

Anyways,Hope this message brings jo out of her catharsis and back in action, giving us daily updates about what field is S-hai currently working on over the weekend ( we all know that about his last accomplishment as a Plumber) hahahaha......

Love to Nidhi and a note to S bahi ,I had made batata wada two days back............

 

Bye for now,

 

Nehal

Top draw

Top draw
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan.

Just look at the crowd in Carrefour gubei. It was the weekend preceeding the Chinese New Year. Am sure that it is the max grossing weekend for any super market in Shanghai. It took 1 hr just to check out

Bhoomi Stores

Named after the niece of the propreitor, Bhoomi Store, the first Indian grocery stores opened near Mandarin City, Gubei. Its the only Indian store in Shanghai but the third one of the Bhoomi group after Shaoxing and Guangzhou. Kamal showed us around the store, which had a variety of snacks and some good old VCD/DVDs. Though in its initial stages, the store has already started issued "Parivar Card' ( for rmb 75) and door delivery service. Aapke Saath...Hamesha (www.bhoomistores.com)

Pure Sin!

Pure Sin!
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan.

This is not for the weight watchers or those fighting the B!



Y! Cafe on the 2nd flr of Shangri-la pudong has the ultimate spread from 10 types of kitchens incl indian. Food is fab and worth the 198 rmb per adult.



Manish and i went there after Some Squash games n hence couLd hog without feeling guilty.

Learning Chinese

Here's a secret..

After living in Shanghai, for a couple of year, one of my friend, suddenly felt a need for improving his elementary chinese, a couple of notches higher. We checked out some of the learning schools in shanghai and found that most of them had rigid structures and course material which did not suit a travelling salesman.

So went back to the net and lo and behold ..stumbled across a nice podcast which suited all our needs and best of all..it was FREE!

Check out this podcast for Learning chinese

http://www.chinesepod.com/podcast.php

Once you subscribe to it you can download it on your MP3 player and listen to it on the go

Thanks to Ken and Jenny! for this wonderful service. They also have premium services for text and other stuff...which can be found on the same website.

Zai jian....

Eating out!

Went to a restaurant on the 7th floor of super brand mall in pudong..cant remember the name.. a real tongue twister. The chinese were standing in queue to get in. The place accords a great view of the bund and needs prior booking. now..the usp of the place is the lavish spread of sea food and all other types of food ..all for rmb 200!