Shivas Restaurant - Mountain View

Shivas Restaurant
800 California Street
Mountain View, CA, 94041
http://www.shivasrestaurant.com/

My Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Category - North Indian
Price - $$
Ambiance - * * * *
Service - * * * */2

I have been to this restaurant (last visit - July 23rd 2008). This is a good restaurant, nice ambiance. We had a reservation but had to wait for 20 minutes after we reached and that too on a wednesday. So beware of reservations - I guess as Seinfeld says they can take your reservation but not hold it. Once we got our table, the service was average, the waiter seemed to be in a hurry and almost tried to make the decision for us. Between the four of us we ordered Paneer Tikka (quite good), Malai Kofta (average) and Bharoni Shimla Mirch (stuffed bell peppers - this was great). The Nans (breads) was quite good. The dessert Mango cheesecake was delicious. I liked the experience if you can ignore the noise and the wait. This is a great place for a larger group to hang out - they have a good menu of wines and some funny Indian cocktails - don't try the Lichi Martini (its tastes like a high fructose juice).

Overall I recommend this restaurant as an occasional place to go for some good North Indian food.

Jet Airways - Indian Airline in international scene

At last i can finally say that there is at least one Indian airline which has the international standards. I actually flew the inaugural flight of Jet Airways from San Francisco to Mumbai via Shangai. I really enjoyed the experience. Though the flight started 2 hours late (Since it was the first flight I assumed this kind of hiccup is normal) but other than that I was pretty impressed. The Flight itself was great - a new Boeing 777-300ER, a spacious plane with 3-3-3 combination for economy and 1-2-1 combination on business class. Each seat has a nice big tv - with great collection of movies especially hindi movies. I caught up with all the latest films. Food was good - finally Indian veggie food was treated with some respect. The staff were well trained and quite professional, it was a good feeling to hear all the announcements in Hindi and felt quite at home.
The overall flight timing is great with just under 20 hrs to reach Mumbai and connection experience at Mumbai for local flight was good too. This is going to be a great choice for Indians traveling over pacific (no more 8-10 hour layover at Singapore).
Jet Airways is an airline to watch out for in the international scene.

San Francisco Marathon Journey

It’s almost been two years since I ran my first marathon in Honolulu. When I started training the first time, I never could have imagined that I would be ever doing this again.
But here I am several marathons later, realizing that I am now addicted to long distance running.
Running has become a passion and running for a cause makes the grueling 26 miles easier. From March to August – I will be logging 500 Miles in this training program which is raising money for fighting AIDS

AIDS is an epidemic that though lot of progress has been made, is far from being over. Sadly, AIDS is now the leading cause of death for all people ages 15 to 59 worldwide.
According to UNAIDS, “Every day over 6,800 persons become infected with HIV, and over 5,700 persons die of AIDS, mostly because of inadequate access to HIV prevention and treatment services.”

That’s why I am committed to raise at least $1800 before June 2nd.
The money you all would help me raise would enable San Francisco AIDS Foundation to continue to provide the amazing services it provides to stop the spread of this dreadful disease.

Thank you for supporting me in this marathon task. When I cross the finish line on August 3rd to complete the San Francisco Marathon, I’ll know that you helped me and many others along the way.

Sincerely,
Rakesh

(Runner No 1493)

For your convenience of donating online – click on the link

Next generation travel - Journey of new traveler

Its been a long journey for the typical traveler - the traveler has moved from brochure information (well crafted - beautified marketing information) to real travel experience - blogs, candid photos, trip journals - trip advisor's. Though I feel this kind of information is in the right direction - My issue has always been with the information overflow. Being someone who has been well versed with the travel industry (since my own company XYKA deals with building these next generation travel tools) - I sometimes find myself lost in the overflow of information. Gone are the days where there was lack of information. but now there is so much of information that it gets fuzzy understanding the data. There are many different sources to get realistic information - referral system is still the most basic form of trusted information - but tripadvisor.com and sites like these also gets skewed between marketing and source of information. The much hyped travel 2.0 and web 2.0 sites are great but since most of the sites are still trying to woo the user generated content, it would be a while before these sites mature. The expectation of the common next generation traveler is to able to very quickly see consolidated most recent blogs, pictures, wants very real data - comparison of real prices - availability and the ease of booking. The next generation travel (the 3.0 or 4.0 ..) version of web reservations would be dictated by the traveler who wants to experience the travel before he travels making sure that he has absolutely made the right decision of choosing the travel itinerary.

Check out Varun making Pani Puri

Bahamas Trip

So I know that its been a while since I had my last post. Things have been just too hectic at work and home. Anyways - whatever i can remember of our bahamas Trip..

Stay - Really comfortable place - extremely family friendly. Amazingly friendly staff. I would definitely give Sunrise Beach Club (http://www.sunrisebeachclub.com/) a 4.5 star experience rating. Click Here for Trip Advisor link.

Activities - Well we had planned a relaxing weekend, not a lot of activities planned. We spent most of our time in the beach. I really enjoyed the fact that there was a bar right in the beach and experimented with quite a lot of tropical drinks. Oh yeah! Sunrise beach club has this massage therapist right in the beach - so that was fun.

Our Children enjoyed really enjoyed the zoo (adrastra zoo), it was a fun place - there was a flamingo show which was quite fun. We also did a half day trip to Blue Lagoon Island and saw a dolphin show. Though I am not a huge fan of captive dolphins - kids loved it. Atlantis being close by was a good place to hang out. We did the Atlantis aquarium - shark reef was a good experience. Overall there was plenty of kids activities.

Couple of restaurants that I liked - Carmine's was a good place though have to watch out for the quantity of food they give. Usually a dish is for four people. We tried an Indian restaurant which was good. Plenty of good restaurants in Atlantis resort.

Overall this was a great place for vacation - would definitely recommend if you want to get some sun.