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.