Kanua???

Well, what does Kanua mean?? I frankly had no idea, till I went to this restaurant.

This one is a concept restaurant situated in Kaikondrahalli, Sarjapur Road. It is the perfect place you want to go, with your parents, spouse, friends or alone... :)

I was taken there first by my friend Mr. "D " and have gone there umpteen number of times afterwards. I have really fallen in love with the place.

After the mad traffic into Sarjapur road, taking the first right after Fabmall and driving through a dirt track you come to this place on the right side of the road, a three storied building near an industrial warehouse. If you go there after sunset, this place has a eerie look to it. The restaurant is located on the second floor and you have to climb through a wooden staircase.

The first thing you notice when you start to climb the stairs is a board which says something like " Dear Patrons, children below 12 years will not be allowed after 6pm Thursday onwards...." (I must say I have seen a lot of kids coming to this place though, along with their parents).

The walls are only half height and if you get to sit at the side (which is most of them, except for the huge tables in the centre), you’ll have a cool breeze to keep you company. The lighting is muted and there are candles on every table. The music is soft and not too loud. Pleasant and soothing! I never had that kind of feeling before in a restaurant, the eating area is without walls and the décor is definitely what I remember from my childhood in my village. The doors open into two, there is woodwork everywhere and the tables and chairs too are from age old days (I mean only look-wise).

The menu card will definitely amuse you; it is like an old book with stamps in every page. Do not mistake them for stamps as they are the specials!! The menu describes to you what the various highly confusing and tongue-twisting names are so that you are not lost. Also the waiting staffs are very cordial and very helpful.

Alcohol is not served in this place, though regulars like us take a small bottle with us and give it to be served. Also it does not have aerated drinks there. There are quite a few beverages that will blow you off. There is sugarcane juice, lemon with mint iced tea so on and so forth, but trust me they all taste pleasantly different.

There is a wide range of starters in both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. I would recommendpodhies, try both the flavors, podhale podhies, made of snake gourd and normal podhies made of sweet potato and/or yam. Then there is Soorna Kachri (sliced yam fries, with tangy tamarind chutney dip). If you are a non-vegetarian, try the fish and the chicken all of them are too good. Sasve chicken and ghee roast deserve a special mention.

For main course I recommend Zalke Randhei (excellent seer fish in semi thick gravy) and Soorna Paachi. With the gravy you can select from rice, panpole or tava roti. Kanua serves two varieties of rice - the standard Basmati type and boiled. I personally love the neer-dosas there. It is simply mind blowing.

Almost all the portions are large and many a times I have ended up parceling the curries back home. The parcel is done in plastic containers, but the carry bag is not plastic, it is made of old newspapers. J

The best part is that there are no artificial colors or chemicals used in any of the preparations. All the things that I have eaten there (which by now is the entire menu card), I have enjoyed and it is good on the palette too. Now coming to the wallet part, it is not a place where only filthy rich can go. Compared to the other sea-food places in MG or Koramangala, this one is pretty decent. An above average meal with five to six starters and main course for three with four to five coolers should cost around Rs.2000/-.

If you drop in the evening and stay on till 9pm you might even bump into Mr. Rajesh, who actually is the owner and he’ll enthrall you with his stories as to what he does and how he came upon the idea of Kanua. A very nice and charming person!!

He mentioned that he has started another restaurant “EGG FACTORY” at White House, St. Marks road. That again is a concept place and has lots of dishes with eggs, right from breakfast to dinner. I forgot to mention that at Kanua you do not get breakfast and it is closed on Mondays.

Now what exactly is Kanua, I believe it means par-boiled brown rice, kind of a lost flavor of rice from south canara….

Near death.....

On Sunday (28^th December, 08) on my way back from Chennai in a car along with my friends we met with an accident. Our car hit a road divider and flew for around 150m in air and then fell on to the road and skidded with a broken right front tyre for another 300m.  All this happened in a span of few seconds, but I felt like I was in the air for and eternity!! There were four of us in the car including the guy who was driving and a brand new guitar that my friend had brought for around seven grand. The best part was none of us including the guitar had any damage! J The car was not so lucky; it had a broken tyre, a bent fender and a bent tyre rod, just to name a few.

 What prompted me to write this was the near death experience, I mean if the car had toppled (it probably would have if we did not have a 220 pound driver), then people would have been writing obituaries for me (high hopes!) rather than me writing this post. I went through a whole gamut of emotions during those few seconds and was wondering if I was the only one who went through it. So as soon as I was out of the shock (which I must say took more than 24 hours), I started to search the internet to find out more about it.

I must say, I was surprised and amused by the results that I found. I got to know that they even have a research foundation named NDERF (Near Death Experience Research Foundation), wherein people share their experiences and they do a lot of research on that. Why?? I have no clue..

Also there is a page in wikipedia (there is a page for almost everything in Wikipedia), where the NDE is described in real detail along with characteristics and what not. Boy.. wasn’t I surprised?

It really is a small world…… full of weird people...