Vaigai Restaurant Review

I had been to this South Indian restaurant Vaigai in Sunnyvale recently and would like to share my thoughts. Last weekend was not the first time I have been to this restaurant, I have had food here once before when they had just opened the restaurant.

The menu here is more or less similar to the menu in every other South Indian restaurant here in the bay area. My husband and I didn't like the restaurant that much after our first visit and that was primarily because of the high price (every dish on the menu is atleast a $1 more) coupled with low quantity of the dish that we ate. We decided to give this restaurant a second chance last weekend.

From our previous visit, we remembered liking the curd vada and ordered that along with fried idly and a couple of combo meals. My husband wanted to order channa batura and the waiter told us that it wasn't available only for us to see another waiter walk past us and serve someone else the same dish just a few moments later.

The curd vada was brought in first and the vada tasted old and whole dish was terrible, it was nowhere close to what it used to be. It costs about $6 for two relatively small old vadas dipped in plain yogurt. Instead of bringing the fried idly next the waiter ended up bringing my main course alone. After a few minutes the mini idly fry was brought in and they had no distinct flavor and once again stuff tasted old and despite being coated with red chilli powder they were not even slightly spicy and the coconut chutney ended up being watery. The fried idli was $6 and it came with very little sambar and coconut chutney and this is by far one of the worst dishes I've ever had.

We were already quite disappointed at this point and my main course was there getting cold and they still hadn't brought my husband's main course. After reminding the waiter his food was finally made it to our table. The combo which costs nearly $10 had 1 plain dosa, 1 vada, 1 small idly and a little pongal with coconut chutney and sambar looked more like rationed prison meal rather than something that you would expect to be served at a restaurant. My husband managed to get onion+tomato chutney but I didn't even though we ordered the exact same dish on the menu. The idly was okay and some parts weren't cooked that well, same was the case with dosa and it was pretty small as well compared to what you get in the other restaurants. The vada was fine and the pongal was very average. It was worse than the pongal that I normally make at home!!

At the end of it all, my husband and I were more disappointed with this restaurant compared to the previous time we dined here and we still wonder how they manage to give low quantities of not so great tasting food and charge more than the other restaurants?? Well, whatever it is we won't be going to this place ever again.

Wax Museum

I visited the Wax Museum in San Francisco yesterday. I went with my family to San Francisco mainly to see the Golden gate bridge. It was a wonderful evening in SFO with clear skies and the golden gate looked so beautiful. Anyways, since we had some time we decided we'll go to the Wax Museum.

Right at the beginning we saw Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and none of them looked real :(, already disappointed we went in to see if there was anything better. As we walked down the stairs to see the other exhibits we first came across Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet's Titanic exhibit. That's easily the worst replica of Kate Winslet that you can see...It looked nothing like her.

As we kept walking there were lots and lots of exhibits. The exhibits were mostly of presidents, world leaders, dictators, actors, scientists, artists, poets and religious figures.

My favorite wax figure was that of Adolf Hitler, it looked so real and scary. The other nice ones were that of Yasser Arafat that again looked pretty real. Benjamin Franklin and Einstein looked good too. Vladimir Putin was good as well. Cleopatra looked great but then I don't know how that compares to the real one. Eddie Murphy and John Travolta looked nice and realistic. In all honesty nothing looked better than Hitler.

Now the really bad ones were their depiction of hindusim, the religious figures didn't have names and their jewellery and clothing didn't do any justice as well. With regard to christianity Jesus preaching everyone was subaverage but the last supper was okay. With regard to other religion there was nothing breathtaking about them and I cannot critic them as I don't know anything about them.

Then we walked down to the section were egyptian mummy exhibits were kept. It was nice to see the details of the tomb and amount of work that must have been put into making these exhibits. They were good but not my favorite.

Then came the horror section that I completely skipped...but it was so awesome to see the floor with pools of blood (red colored wax really), it sort of looks real until to see it really close.

Now I got to see the sports figures Barry bonds, lance armstrong and stuff...it was okie. After this was the hollywood stars, IMO nicole kidman and marilyn monroe were good but everything else was subaverage. The worst was that of Britney Spears again it looked nothing like her. Now for the hollywood men, Keanu Reeves from Matrix looked okay from distance. The real good exhibits were that of Travolta and Eddie Murphy. The really bad exhibits were that of Governator and Clint Eastwood.

Once this section was over there was a bunch of exhibits for western actors and stuff...and then there were some exhibits for some of the famous paintings like the mona lisa. These were interesting to see but I'm sure I won't remember seeing them.

Overall I would say it was an interesting time pass. It was a lot of fun especially since I visited in a group and not just by myself. I'll post the pics sometime soon.

My new laptop!!!

Aw!! I wanted to write this review for a while now but couldn't get to compose it for a while. So, here's the story. I bought a new Compaq laptop from Best Buy for $500 and it came to $538 after taxes.

The laptop has the following components: I'm only listing selective components

1) AMD Turion 64 X2
2) 2GB DDR2 Memory
3) 250 GB Hard Disk
4) Nvidia GeForce 7000M
5) 5-in-1 Memory card reader
6) Double Layer DVD burner

and the laptop runs Windows Vista Home Premium. (For detailed spec, use the link above).
My fiance suggested that I buy this laptop as he was convinced that this is a wonderful configuration for $500. The other laptops with similar configuration were clearly at least a $100 more. Anything that had Intel Core 2 Duo was even more expensive.
First of all I had a Sony VAIO with a Core duo processor, it was an elegant looking laptop even though I found Core duo processor's performance to be average. I loved the screen and also the fact that it never got hot despite using it for longer hours but it had lousy speakers and was super heavy. Anyways, I decided to give the Sony laptop to my parents as a replacement for our older PC as I thought it'll fulfill all their needs.
Now about the new laptop I think it justifies every penny that I spent on it. It looks nice and has a black chassis unlike my Sony that was white. I love the fact that it has Nvidia GeForce video card which kinda makes the display look better. The laptop performs really well but then I don't really use it for playing games and stuff...I use it to work from home for the most part. Initially I was skeptical about buying this laptop as I was unsure about having the Turion processor and also wasn't sure about the build quality of the laptop.
I still decided to buy this laptop as I felt that it would be impossible to get any other branded laptop for the price that I paid. My old Sony costed me $700, which made me think that this laptop was quite a steal.
The most interesting stuff that really made me love the laptop was that when we were looking at the performance score using Vista OS, we found out that Vista gave AMD Turion X2 processor 0.1 more than Intel's C2D and the DDR2 RAM also is comparatively faster than a similar Dell Vostro laptop. So, basically better processor with comparatively better memory really sold the laptop for me and the clean sounding Altec Lansing speakers are a plus. I should also mention the fact that this laptop doesn't get hot despite using it for long durations. I left it on for more than 24 hours and it didn't get hot one bit :). I also love the keypad as its really flat. The charger for the laptop is really small and the length of the cord is pretty generous :) This laptop's wireless connectivity is way better than my old Sony.
I guess I'll end this post here as its getting pretty long, so overall in all fairness i'll give this laptop a 5/5 and yes, I'm extremely excited and happy about this purchase.

Mande Lular Sensuous Body souffle review

I've been using Mande Lular Sensuous Body souffle for about 6-8 months now. I've been a fan of this product since the first day I started using it.

I've been searching for a good moisturizer for years, none of them really worked for me on a consistent basis. I've tried almost every other moisturizer out in the market to a point that someone that visited my apartment thought that I was spending a lot on cosmetics but the reality was that I bought these moisturizers and they didn't work for me and I really couldn't return them.

Once I was shopping at Target and noticed this Sanctuary Spa's Mande Lular Sensuous Body Souffle. I kinda smelt it a little bit and read the description and noticed that the tub that I was looking at was the only one left so I decided to take it

Needless to say that this stuff smells exceptionally good. The Souffle as such is a little thick but I have no problems with it. In just two applications, my skin became super smooth and soft and it definitely made the skin look more brighter. The best part of this Souffle is that I can use this on my face as well and see the same kind of results. In fact I used this Soffule everyday for a few days and then stopped using it for a week, just so to see how my skin did and my skin didn't dry out for a considerable number of days.

I usually apply this Souffle before I go to bed. I don't use the Souffle every day instead I use it once every 2-3 days. But, I do religiously use it everyday on my face and many people have complimented me for my skin (I've always had good skin, but this product has made people notice it more). I should also note that the mositurizer works so well that skin doesn't dry out after taking a shower or washing my face.

This is my second Mande Lular tub in the past 6 months as very little Souffle goes a really long way. Unlike the really small boxes of body butters, this box is generously sized and only little Souffle is needed to get adequate moisturizing.

I paid about $15 for this but I honestly feel that this was very much worth the price by all means. I had spent a whole lot on other mass produced moisturizers like Nivea, Suave, St. Ives, Neutrogena!!! None of them stand a chance against Mande Lular.

I've seen it for myself that this Souffle works well on normal and dry-skinned people and I'm not sure about how it works on oily skin. But the bottom line is if you think other spa mositurizers and high end moisturizers are too expensive, Mande Lular might be worth trying. I'm so happy with this souffle that I never bought another moisturizer to even try it out :).

Origins Modern Friction and Modern Fusion review!!

Sometime back I realized that my skin is no longer smooth and soft, and I ended up searching for a product that'll even out my skin tone and make it softer.
I've always used my same body wash on my face as well or I've used Olay facial cleanser, both of which weren't enough to do any good to my face! So, I decided to go searching for some facial product that would do some good to my face.
Basically I have pretty good skin for the most part so I didn't really need something that was very intensive. All I needed was something that would make my skin more clear and nice :). Some of my friends use the 100% organic products but I ruled them out because I couldn't justify spending $60 for a beauty product, besides that I didn't really like it when I tried the sample.
So now having said all that I've tried many of the mass products but none of them really worked consistently. I went to the Westfield Valley Fair Mall that's near Santana Row and I wanted to just see the different beauty boutiques that are there and finally pick something.
Once I was in the mall, I got real curious about the Origins brand, the lady there talked me into buying this Modern Friction buffing paste for the face and the Modern Fusion serum. I tried this stuff on the back of my palm in their boutique and I should agree that I've never seen a better scrub.
I got charged about $75 for both of these and I really wasn't sure if it was all worth it, nevertheless I decided to try the product and if it really doesn't work then I could always return it.
Now that I've been using this product for more than a month, my skin shows very clear improvement. It's quite amazing as to how such really small quantity of the serum and buffing paste work so well.
About the buffing paste, it's not as coarse as the other scrubs in the market and very little quantity stretches all the way and I really like the fact that it lathers with water. I also like the way I'm able to massage this all over my face. The scrub has very clean rice and lemon fragrance which is quite refreshing and nice. I could clearly feel the skin to be soft every time I use the scrub and the result is immediate. I was advised to use the scrub about 2-3 times a week, but since my skin is really sensitive I only use it twice a week sometimes less. I could clearly say that my skin has improved with every use.
Now, to the Modern Fusion serum, I was told to apply this serum after cleansing my face. This serum is supposed to be worn under the moisturizer. Just a couple of drops of the serum helps cover my entire face and it gives a uniform matte finish to the skin and it seems to keep the face clear and nice pretty much through the day. I don't use separate make up or face-powder, it's pretty much the serum and moisturizer and the results are quite amazing. This serum also smells of rice and lemon and is very pleasant and its not as strong smelling as some of the other serums and moisturizers.
I can clearly see that my face has become more brighter and the skin tone has gotten better. I really love these two products. Despite the seemingly high price, I'm fairly certain the buffing paste would last me another 3-4 months and the serum might last atleat another 2 months. So, that makes the cost come down to roughly about $10/month, which is worth it for the kind of results I've seen using these products.
If you are really searching for skincare products that show results, Origins might be really good place to start.

Dasavathaaram: A big let down

Last weekend was kind of disappointing for me for a variety of reasons and one of them was having to sit through Dasavathaaram.
First of all, I am not a big fan of Kamal Hassan but I still decided to watch this movie because of all the hype. Even though my gut told me that this movie would be bad, I still gave in to the curiosity. Finally, there I was on Friday watching this movie.
I won't be going over the plot, I am only going to discuss the most atrocious aspects of the movie. After watching the movie, I can confidently say that Kamal played the ten different characters only for the sake of setting a record that no one else cares about. I understand that most of the money was spent on makeup, that looked terrible. I honestly cannot understand how Kamal or K.S.Ravi Kumar watched this movie and decided to release it.
Like the makeup wasn't enough to screw the movie, every single stunt was copied over from some other Hollywood movie. I could give them the benefit of doubt if it was just one stunt or two that resembled a hollywood movie but instead every single one was copied.
Considering the fact that Terminator is one of my favorite movies, I can never forgive Kamal Hassan trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger!!! (I should admit that it's not too bad when compared to Vijayakanth trying to look like Keanu Reeves in Arasangam)!!
Out of the 10 characters, about 8 of them ranged from below average to annoying and unnecessary. The Avtar singh character was a total waste of time and fact that he gets cured in the end reminded me of an old Muthuraman movie in which the doctor dies after saving Muthuraman (Which is total BS).
The 95 year old granny was the most disturbing and I am fairly certain that watching this character might just be a reason enough to have nightmares. This was by far the worst makeup I've ever seen in my life.
By now, you could see that I've already endured quite a bit of stuff here and on top that they have this Asin's character and every time she spoke my only visceral reaction was that I wanted to slap her so she would never speak.
I still don't understand why they made a big deal with referring to the common salt as NaCl and how no one calls it common salt. If they really thought that it would be a suspense until Kamal reveals it at the end it really wasn't. There was no suspense, everything was so predictable except for K.S.Ravi Kumars' dancing at the end! I was lost for words when I saw him dance at the end. Did he really have to put us through that??
Amidst all this annoyance, it was the Balram Naidu's character that shined. It was probably the only character that was worth watching in the entire movie. The interrogation scene was the only piece of the movie that's worth watching.
So finally was it satisfactory? No way.
was it gruesome? Completely so.
What did I get out of watching the movie: Migraine headache.