BARR - Madras Cafe

After a long gap, we made it to a restaurant for a little family dinner. We have been meaning to go to Madras Cafe at the corner of Bernardo and El Camino for the last three months. The place was being renovated and expanded and they were closed longer than originally anticipated. The new Madras Cafe, is much more spacious. We can actually get the baby stroller inside the place. The place hasnt been decorated yet and shows bare white walls but the new addition of a restroom makes Madras Cafe a much better place. I am not saying this as a joke. If you have a toddler who says "I wanna go pee pee" the minute you start your first bite of rava dosa, no matter which restaurant you go to, and insists that Daddy take her pee pee, you will realize the importance of having a restroom in the restaurant that is accessible to customers. Enough Said about the new decor, space and restroom.. lets get to the food.





The cook has still not lost his magic touch. The dinner items were out of the world !! We have so many good memories of eating at this place when it was just started. The food and the coffee/tea are still the same.

Wait time : 10 minutes (seat yourself)
Food wait time from order : 5 minutes for all items except Dosa (15 for Dosas)
Check time : 3 minutes (Visa Mastercard , pay first then eat !)
Average price per person : $11
Rating "Grandma, where are you ?".
Service : Above average


Items sampled : Rava Dosa, Dosa, Poori Masala, Vegetable paratha, pongal, coffee, tea

I have the title of Mr. Rava Dosa that has been given to me by many of the local restaurant managers.. But the poori masala at Madras Cafe is one of my favorites. Especially the masala. No one comes close to making this masala just right. The rava dosa is of course excellent. My wife ordered the vegetable parota thinking it was what the people at the next table were having (it was not).. so I ended up eating what was almost a aloo pizza !! I cut it into pieces like pizza so my daughter could have a piece. She didnt like it as much as she liked the dosa.

The pongal was very dry. But then again, pongal is not their best item. Madras Cafe is very good for all Dosai items, rice items (lemon rice especially), vadais and Pooris. If you restrict yourself to these items, they are much better and more affordable. But like swati tiffins, they have to get all their items right over time. Next to Mr. Dharmaraj's coffee, they have the second best coffee and a great Tea !

Recommendation : Definitely worth it !

Quote of last week..

"Sundar, raising two kids is proving to be more difficult than I expected already. So, please grow up !!"

- Sangeetha.

Two months and recognizing . . .

** problem with ourmedia on this video.... has been fixed !!! ***

She is 2 months old now and already a handful..

Handling money for the first time - Photo blog

In all the hoopla of last week, baby got her first $$ as a gift for "kaanum Pongal". She really enjoyed it. Drooled all over it and disfigured the money. The good news is that she likes the touch and feel of the $$ bill and that cant be a bad thing in todays world !!

The unplanned leave ....to my blog

I am not sure if I should start this post with something like "I am baaack" etc. etc.

Reason, the last week has seen a lot of turbulence in my normal life. I have not even bothered to check my Gmail account for the last four days !! This from a guy who checks it every 30 seconds..

After the Pongal celebration, we had a small mattu pongal at home. This was followed by a series of events which took me away from blogger..

As most of you know, I have a Ph.D. from a long time ago. Recently, I had decided to take on the role of a statistics advisor for my co-workers and the executives felt that I should be able to "talk the talk" to go with my "walk the walk". So, I was encouraged to apply for a M.S. degree in Mathematics. My original admission was for spring quarter starting april. In a series of events along the lines of Limony Snicketts, my admission got changed to this quarter and yours truly has started school again. Having already missed the first lecture, I had to play catchup, this with taking on a new job within my company starting this new year (I am still learning the ropes on the new job !).

God and my pager at work have blessed me with two gifts :

a. I can go for days without sleep, (okay a few hours a day would be more than enough)
b. If I decide to sleep, I can hit the bed and be out like a light in 2 minutes flat.

Both these abilities have helped me blog even though we had a new baby and a round the clock job.. so, the new job, school all these things shouldnt be that much of a distraction from blogging ? right ?

I forgot to mention the one thing that changed my regular equation.. TEEEEEETH !!
Had to go to my second installment of the deeeep cleaning. That left me weak and irritated and I had to slow things down so I can focus. My whole daily routine was moving in front of me in slow motion what with the teeth irritating me in the background. Crying kids, yelling wife, admonishing mother in law, nothing seemed to make a difference.. was searching for my purse in the restaurant yesterday while still holding it in my hand !!

Now, after a week, the teeth have finally relented, I have finished my HOMEWORK and have also gotten over the backlog at work. . . things should more or less get back on track starting today, or at least that is the hope.

And yes, this means I get to read all your blogs starting tonight !!