Kobe's - Restaurant Review- Chennai - Naaaiiiceee!

Had heard about Kobe's coming to chennai a while back from a friend who tried the place, and she was pretty excited with the quality of food that she got. A group of friends and I finally got some time to go there, and I was pleasantly surprised to eat there. Tucked off the main road, its very easy to miss this place. You end up driving through a rather large parking lot, and the valet parking is a bliss. We were seated almost instantly even though we did not have a reservation. We ordered almost all the meats that were there- fish, lamb and chicken. I had the veg burger, but tasted the meat, and I was quite impressed with the food.

The quantities were sufficient for a single person, and the toppings were decent. There was a sizeable meat portion with an equally balanced helping of vegetables on the sizzler. The sauces were different and you could at certain points taste the individual flavours of the sauces.

I must comment here on the quality of the meat. It was very well cooked. Not under done nor over cooked. However, I might have been a little happier if they had not microwaved my burger before serving as it made the bun hard as a rusk, but i foudn that to add a nice crunch to the burger. I personally woulde have liked the patty to be a little more moist with the mayo or sauces being offered on the side for me to add.

The staff were courteous and the place appeared clean and neat. There was sufficient ventilation as our eyes did not start burining from a table of 4 sizzlers. Which is a feather in their cap.

I would recommend this place and will surely visit again.

Mainland China- Restauran Review- GWAD Aweful!

I went to mainland china last week with my wife and a few friends. They had a special offer for platinum card holders which at that point looked like an awesome deal. there was a soup of your choice, a series of 4 starters and 4 main course dishes which comprised of 2 non veg side dishes, 2 veg side dishes and 1 rice and 1 noodle and 2 deserts (i dont remember if it was 2 or 3)

the hitch is that it has to be a minimum of 4 people and you hvae to have a platinum card.

the deal is a good deal, but i was quite dissapointed with the quality of food presented. The soup was excellent, but after that everything was downhill. Yes, the crispy corn and the dimsums was still how i remembered it, but that was the star attraction. They served some fish starter in which the flavor had not reached the fish. The maincourse was pretty much the same. There were two veg dishes - which I can classify just that veg dishes - it was a hash of tasteless vegetables thrown into some gravy. I dont know what they were trying to serve- left overs or just all the excess greens that they had in the kitchen. I had half a mind to ask the staff if they thought we were cows - and looking for greens to graze on. I could not eat much of the main course as it was sub par to say the least. The chicken that they served was tasteless and almost the entire portion of the food went for a waste. The only saving grace was the desert. My wife loves the chocholate spring roles and they did not fail to dissapoint this time either. I was trying the honey fried something with icecream and loved it.

I suspect the fish was a little spoilt as it tasted a little off- and i spent the rest of the night and early morning rushing to and from the rest room. Yes, i did get an upset stomach the next day, but i also got a bad case of indestion from the food. I dont know if I can pinpoint it to the fish or the overall food. But this time I was really disappointed with Mainland china.

So if its chinese you stay far away from mainland china and try some other place.

________________________________________________________

Update - 1st September 2010

I should have posted this earlier - but as soon as my review came out, I had someone from Mainland china contact me. It was nice to see them take some solid action against what was being said. They said they would look into the entire issue and sent me an apology as well. What i really appreciate is the fact that there was some follow up. Whether or not solid action is taken I guess would be secondary, but the fact that they extended a helping hand to look into this issue is nice.

Grub Rescue - error with Windows 7 and Ubuntu

So you have installed a dual boot windows 7 and Ubuntu and then after a futile attempt to make things work at office, decide to delete the partition onto which Ubuntu has been installed. you restart and bang!

GrubRescue>

GrubRescue>

GrubRescue>

GrubRescue>

GrubRescue>

You realize that you need to get things fixed without formatting the hard disk and loosing your windows files.

Here are the steps which I took that worked for me.

1. Boot with a regular windows 7 CD.

Select the English (or your language option)/ keyboard setup etc and click next

3. select "Repair Windows" option

4. after the installation of windows is found, select the install and click next.

5. select the Repair boot option

now if this does not work. You need to get your hands dirty.

6. Select the option of "Command Prompt"

7. Enter the following command

bootsect /nt60 sys c:\

this should repair the mbr

incase this does not work try the next option

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup

C:

CD Boot

Attrib bcd –s –h –r

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /RebuildBcd

then it said

“Scanning all disks for windows installations.

Please wait, since this may take a while…

Successfully scanned windows installations: 1

[1] C:\windows

Add installations to boot list? Yes(y)/No(N)/All(A) : “

I pressed ‘Y’ as there was only one instance of windows installation. Then it said The operation completed successfully.

6. Next entred the following command bootrec /fixmbr It said The operation completed successfully.

7. Next entred the following command bootrec /FixBoot Again It said The operation completed successfully.

incase this does not work try the next option

go to c:

type Dir

if you get a blank directory then thats the problem. Find out what drive letter has been assigned to the primary windows installation drive. in my case, the rescue drive setup by toshiba assigned c to itself. and my windows was loaded onto what dos assumed was D: so i changed the bootsect command a bit

type :

bootsect /nt60 sys d:\

and bang!

Windows boots up!

thanks to www.pcchimp.com for this support

and http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7repair/thread/42d3f550-bf5f-459d-94ed-4cbadd7c933c

#twitter coming of Age in #India?

It was a pleasant surprise.
Came to office on this morning, and the airtel internet connection was not working. to the point of frustration as it was not a on off scenario but an annoying slow and painful connection. Which forced me to post a tweet : Well, an hour and a half after that - i get a reply :)
if not anything - i know someone is listening - and as i promised our friend sitting behind the name of tatadocomo - when the number portability comes in - i will jump out of airtel!
:)