Kerala Day 2 - Cochin Club

I woke up bright and early in the morning - went exploring the premises where we stayed the night. The Cochin Club is over a century old. The rooms are beautiful with colonial furniture and the complimentary breakfast was served in style in their dining room. The yellow walls with the tiled roofs bathed by the morning sun, the birds singing their morning songs, the salty breeze from the ocean outside the window, made it one of the most beautiful mornings I had seen in a long long time.
We highly recommend that you book yourself into this charming piece of history on your trip to Fort Kochi - you'll love it!

My only regret was we barely stayed in here for 12 hours as we started our drive to Munnar at 9 am on Day 2.


The Cochin Club
St. Francis Church Road,
Fort Cochin,
Cochin - 682 001. Kerala, INDIA.
Ph:91-484-2215140
Ph:91-484-6598994
Ph:91-484-2216211
Email:cochinclub@sify.com

Kerala Day 1 - Dinner at Fort Kochi

We left Hyderabad late afternoon on the 30th, and airports in both Hyderabad as well as Kochi are located quite a distance from the main residential areas - so we reached Fort Kochi around 8 pm - checked ourselves into the Cochin Club and headed out to Malabar House for dinner at their fine dining restaurant, Malabar Junction. The eco friendly decor and the old world ambience coupled with the small lamps hanging from the frangipani trees more than made up for the humidity.

Their menu was made up of Kerala fusion cuisine, which was a new taste for us.

The Malabar House
Malabar Junction - The restaurant
Fort Cochin
1/268 – 1/269 Parade Road
Fort Cochin 682001
Kerala
India
Tel: 0091 484 2216666 / Fax: 0091 484 2217777

Cuddles

Lots of them...before leaving him with the baby sitter for a Sunday evening out with the hubby and the visiting bro in law :)

[Self photograph, inspired by Sig]

3 Foodies

the 3 foodies in question are Arundati, Siri and yours truly
Siri is in her home-city to get married and she took time off her busy schedule to meet her fellow Hyderabad food bloggers!

Landmark

One of the best places to shop for books, music, movie, gifts, toys, stationary and yes, they even have a lot of kitchen stuff and gadgets!
Only that my kid gets all hyper looking at the colours and stuff around, wanting to jump off from my arms and do his 'demolition man' act - so unless I come here by myself, it's a 'get in-pick up what i want - get out' thing!
Hoping to do one long browsing session across the three floors soon.

Streaming sunlight

With the fragrance of the ready frankincense cones in the air, the sunlight came streaming in this morning - although the heat was more than what we could handle, it paints a cozy picture of a weekday morning at home.

Polished...

...the little silver glasses to drink chilled Panakam on Sri Rama Navami

Ginger

This neighbourhood fat cat that sometimes manages to catch Atri's interest was sitting right outside my balcony today

Shrunk

Juicy tomatoes tossed with garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and olive oil
Baked for 20 minutes at 200 C

Weekend outing

Sunset behind the Buddha statue in the middle of the Hussain Sagar Lake
Lumbini Park, Hyderabad
Boat takes you to the statue area where you are allowed ten minutes to go around and it takes you back to the park
Had a fun evening out
One of the kid-friendly outings in the city

A close up of Lord Buddha's serene face

Information about the statue (click on the pic to read)

The search is on...

...for a place where Atri can meet kids of his age to play with!
The things our parents did not have to do...
No kids of Atri's age in the vicinity :(

An unusual vase

In the lake in the middle of Vengalarao Park

Juicy babies

Found these baby tomatoes in a bag mixed with some of their yellow friends (see below) - couldn't resist bringing them home - now to figure what to do with them - any suggestions?

Nonbu adai

Savoury and sweet Nonbu Adai typically made for Karadayan Nonbu - my cousin made it when I was in Bglr for the festival, so I tried replicating it when I got back home. They made a perfect light dinner - the sweet ones are had with white butter which we did not have at home, so we were kinda saved :)

Basant rani

Tabebuia rosea in full bloom on the sidewalks of Bangalore
Highlight of my visit this time
Saw these trees almost everywhere
Also called the Pink trumpet tree
Same featured in another post - Flower Shower

The tree upon the roof

The view from the window of my friend's house on Osborne Road - old time Bangalore homes on canopy covered lanes
Loved this huge tree covering the tiled roof

Mavalli Tiffin Rooms

After having heard so much about this legendary eatery, I finally got a chance to taste their food. Luckily for me, they have opened a branch in a nearby mall, so we did not have to travel too much.

We tried their idli-sambar, rava dosa, masala dosa, chow-chow baath, baadam milk and coffee between the four of us (Atri included) - and every single thing tasted absolutely wonderful. Their sambar was to die for - no trace of sweetener like how we find it in most cities.

Packed...

...and ready to leave on a small holiday.

Tiffin time

When we passed one of the branches of the famous Minerva Coffee Shop, we had to step in. Pesarattu, Chole Bhature and filter coffee downed, needless to say that made an early supper for us.

P.S.
To the two guys who got captured in the frame by default, sorry!

Flower shower

A most amazing sight lay in wait for us at the park this evening...gentle breeze bringing down showers of these light pink flowers that nearly covered the grass all over...as usual I had my toddler in my arms, so couldn't take a picture of the flower showers, but managed this shot as a remembrance of the pleasant evening we had. Another pic of the fallen flowers on the walk-way - any idea what tree this could be? Is this by any chance the Tabebuia impetiginosa?
Updated on 16/03/10
Enlightened from my visit to Bangalore, this tree is Tabebuia rosea / basant rani / pink trumpet tree

A letter from Amma

Receiving a hand-written letter from my mom brought me such happiness this morning - the main intent of the post was to send me 'sharadu' for Karadayan Nonbu - so she decided to send me a letter with some loving words and the recipe for Nonbu adai.
An informative post on this festival on the Hindu Devotional Blog

Have a...

100% Multivitamin juice :)

Soaking up the sun

Manisha's No oil Lemon pickle

Updated with another pic -

Lotus Pond

This pond in a cement tank of  a local temple made a pretty sight - I remembered such lotuses that I saw a few years ago in KL's Orchid Park - would have loved a close-up, but this is all I could capture on my zoom.

Hangout

We've been having a gala time with our friend from Bombay and we went searching for an ice cream early in the evening. This place called Oranges N Lemons had caught my attention for its bright and spacious interiors on one of my drives and we took off in search of this.
Sadly they didn't have much of a variety on ice creams, but the long juices and shakes menu, with interesting bye-lines more than made up for that. The three of us made ample fun of their descriptions and laughed hard. The had most of the board games stacked up for people who wanted to play, wi-fi for the facebook addicts :) - not having too much time on hand, we played a game of Snakes and Ladders - and we laughed so much, we had forgotten how much fun this game was, especially when your opponents come down long snakes :)
Over-all the evening was great fun!

A nice weekend

Enjoying the Friday with a nice cup of mid morning lemongrass tea
I don't find lemongrass or chai patti in Hyderabad as easily as I'd find them in Bombay, so managed to find some bulbs in Ruci & Idoni - kept them in a jar of water for a few days and planted them - now a couple of snips & they brighten up my mornings with their fresh flavour :)

Bought a set of three orange plastic strainers from Hypercity - love their cheery colours :)

This is turning out to be a fun weekend as we have a friend who engages us with great conversations staying over with us :)

Anything goes

I remember that a few years ago, a law was passed in Mumbai that all license plates should have uniform fonts and they be in English, not that too many followed the rule. But here in Hyd, everyday I am amazed by the funny (illegal) license plates I spot in front of our car. The commonest rule breaker being - replacing the AP with TG - initially I even tried to figure if that was an abbreviation for any other Indian state I couldn't remember - after a while realised it was the yet-to-be-formed state Telangana and no traffic cop dare stop such a car with illegal license plates!

Yesterday was another crazy license plate spotting - writing 8055 as BOSS, while it is creative, i'd rather people left their creativity to do better jobs that trying stunts with official stuff like car license plates!

Pretty homes

 One would think these cottages are in some kind of holiday resort - but they are bang in the middle of Banjara Hills - went visiting a friend in this campus and these stone-brick houses with the glorious golden tabaebuias (thank you d) had to be my pic of the day.

A close-up of the trees

Heya!

 

Finally, a movie in the movie hall - after 16 months

After singing along, dancing along to the fabulous music of Karthik Calling Karthik, I finally got to see the movie - breaking my movie hall exile!

Am so excited that I had to share this right away...

Rediscovering the simple pleasures of life sure feels good

Farhan Akhtar - I'm sure you know it, but you are superb!

First day of spring

Liked the colours of this climber growing wild in my friend's compound, so brought a cutting home and stuck it in an empty wine bottle, not knowing if it will shoot and after almost ten days of sitting in water, shoot it did - I was just happy to spot a new little green shoot on the first day of spring.

Here's a shot of the whole thing...