Movie Review - Holiday: A soldier is never off duty

I got to catch the latest flick involving Akshay Kumar this week. And this one had a storyline.
Holiday: A soldier is never off duty had got reasonably good reviews and I wanted to watch this one.

As the name suggests, the movie is about a soldier i.e. Akshay Kumar, and his home coming from the army for a vacation.
The purpose of the holiday is to see a potential bride, i.e. Sonakshi Sinha.

The holiday however goes unlike anything planned as he involuntarily gets involved at the scene of a terror incident. Seeing the police inaction and inability to cope up with the situation, he decides to take matter into his own hands and kidnaps the terrorist.
Soon enough he comes up with a plan involving his colleagues wherein they foil a major terror attack together, thereby angering the mastermind behind the attacks.
The movie revolves around the concept of 'sleeper cells' who are terrorists that work without knowing the future plan but are just a part of the jigsaw.
The finale sees the terrorist face off with Akshay directly as they try to outsmart and out muscle each other.

All this goes on while there is an entire parallel track running, revolving around the love lives of our hero and heroine. The coming together of these 2 storylines is so bad, it feels like an amateur working on a movie merging software and trying to bring 2 movies together.

The sudden song and dance sequences and all of the mush involving our lead actors is what ruins what could have been a perfectly good film.
Sonakshi Sinha has no purpose in the movie, and quite frankly she doesn't even makes up for good eye candy.



Akshay kumar does well in his role as an army officer and looks the part, making his over the top action sequences look believable.
Freddy daruwala as the leader of the terrorist outfit essays his role well as a shrewd criminal mastermind.
The storyline is quite ok, but the treatment given to it by the director is bad.
If the purpose of the love story was to show the soft side of the army man, it has failed terribly.

What does bring a tear to the eye is the last song, where all families send off their sons/brothers/husbands back from the vacation, not knowing if they'll ever come back. A beautiful song indeed.

Could have been a really fab movie, but it warrants a watch. A tribute to the real heroes.

Rating - 3.5/5

Hotel Review - Goldfinch, Mangalore

I say it’s arguably the best hotel in Mangalore because I’ve also stayed at Ocean Pearl and across all parameters they measure quite close and its difficult to pick a clear winner.
It was my first visit to Hotel Goldfinch in Mangalore, although I’ve had a few dining experiences at their Bangalore hotel.

The property is not very large, the lobby and reception area is rather small I’d say. The hotel has more than 50 rooms though, and the room was very nice indeed.
The table and plush leather chair gives you a space to work and the sofa right next to it is comfortable to sit down for a while and watch some TV, which was not their best part, as the channels were not tuned  and difficult to operate.

The bed was nice and comfortable offering good sleep quality, and decore of the room was decent and neat. Bathroom was small but workable, and importantly had a faucet, hair dryer and toiletries. Rooms are on the topmost 3-4 floors and have a view of the city.



The lower floors occupy the banquet halls, the spa and salon, ‘mojo’ the bar and  couple of their restaurants. They have dining options like Kabab Studio, which specializse in north Indian dishes apart from Kababs. They also have live musical performance on weekends. It is also where their buffet breakfast is served.
The other restaurant is ‘Sana di ge’ which is a very nice sea food specialty restaurant.

The location of the hotel is very central, and it is near Bunts Hostel and Jyothi Circle. Pricing is good for the quality offered too.

Service seemed alright but will need to experience more in order to know better. That does mean i'm gonna be back again, because I had a good stay.

Rating - 4/5

Restaurant Review - Sana-Di-Ge, Mangalore

Mangalore is famous for it's sea food and if you are looking for a fine dine sea food  option, then Sana-Di-Ge, located at the Goldfinch Hotel is a fantastic option.
The restaurant located on the 8th floor boasts of a fine ambiance, with a fish tank on the wall adding to the look.



The seating is comfortable and music is not too loud.
The waiters are also dressed in traditional mangalore attire with a dhoti and shirt.
They take care to ensure you are comfortable and they give good recommendations for food too.

I was solo, so had a limited appetite, I had a prawn starter which covered in this wonderful masala which was flavourful and spicy, had a good amount of oil too. But it went well with my drinks and the prawn was perfectly cooked.
They also serve some fryums along with the drinks, and these arrived in an interesting wooden cart on my table and i liked the presentation, though not the taste.













My main course was very simple - a fish curry along with the humble but healthy brown rice. The fish was Anjal, and didnt have any thorns in it, it was nicely cooked. The curry had a rough texture on the tongue maybe due to the presence of lot of spices, but it was not bad. A good companion to the rice.

The place was not too noisy and as i looked out of the windows, overlooking the city, i sipped my drink and had some good Mangalore food. It was a relaxing experience, which was rather heavy on the pocket, but can be experienced once in a while.

Rating - 3.5/5

Restaurant Review - Banjara, Kumara Park

Banjara is a fine dining restaurant located inside the Goldfinch Hotel in Kumara Park.
I always like coming to this hotel, feel calmness inside.
The decore is simple and formal, nothing jazzy to grab your attention. Seating is comfortable and well spread out, allowing privacy and keeping down the volume levels.
Service staff are good and know their job well.
The menu revolves around north indian, they also have continental and oriental cuisine, but are best known for their indian.

Now coming to the main topic - the food
We were here on a relaxed sunday afternnon, so started off with a couple of beers and some starters.
We tried the mutton seekh kabab, kurkuri bhindi and mushroom chilly.
The mutton kababs were soft and good enough to be enjoyed, and the crispy 'masaledaar' bhindi was surprisingly good.
Mushroom was not bad either. Everything was a good accompaniment with the chilled beer.

We went on to order the paneer khurchan which was rather ordinary, and the paneer was not soft either. The non veggies had a murgh lahori which was barbecued and part of the nice thick gravy. It went well with the stuffed kulchas as well as the tandoori rotis.

We also tried the palak rice which had maybe equal proportions of palak curry and rice. We had some raita with it, though it was not really required.

The food was good overall. Made me wonder why we don't go here more often.
The pricing is a bit high, but quality justifies it.

Rating - 4/5

Restaurant Review - London Street, Mangalore

Located on the top floor of the popular city centre mall in Mangalore, London Street is a classy pub. They have a relaxed seating and a casual decor with a large screen equipped with a projector which usually plays popular sports, i got to watch an IPL game last time I was here.

The bar has a good range of liquor and the food menu also is quite comprehensive.
I ordered a pitcher of beer which was nice and fresh, and some starters to go with it.
Got to try the chicken loliipop(drums of heaven) which was rather good, tender chicken well covered by batter. And also the wonderful butter garlic prawns which were brilliantly done.
The portions are rather large mind you, so be careful not to over order. A couple of dishes will be surplus for 3 people.

The rice dishes are also good, i tried one the last time, though i can't recall the name.
Service is good and the staff are always available to serve you.
They have an outdoor area as well which offers views of the city and a convenient smoking zone.

Though the pricing is high, it is good for an evening out with friends. A good pub in Mangalore. Expect nothing british about it.

Rating - 4/5

Restaurant Review - Ferghana, Jayanagar

Sometimes you walk into a restaurant and get a sad feeling, because you know the place is tastefully done by the owners but is not commercially viable.
I felt a distinct melancholy on my visit to Ferghana. Though we went in at around 9 p.m, only 2 tables were occupied.
One look around and you know the owners have put their heart and soul and ofcourse lots of money in setting up this place, but it wouldn't be able to sustain for long without some very strong marketing.

Coming to the point, the food-
From what we tried the makhmali seekh was your regular seekh kabab, not bad. The Murgh Tikka though was very bad. Hard chewy chicken with ordinary marination which we couldn't even finish.

Among the mains, paneer khurchan tasted alright and had good masala with soft pieces of paneer, and the balti murgh methiwala was not as bad as the starter, it tasted fine.
The final nail in the coffin was the chocolate paan which was totally unlike what we expected. It was a piece of chocolate with the mildest pan flavour and was pathetic.
We wouldn't have been disappointed if we had this food in a dhaba or a small restaurant, but with these kind of prices you expect some quality which was missing here.

Felt bad for the staff as they were really trying their best, unfortunately i don't think this place will sustain for long.

Rating - 3/5

Restaurant Review - Sunny's, Lavelle Road

Sunny's has been one of the most popular high end restaurants for authentic European/Mediterranean cuisine for years now. We remember going here 8-10 years back and experiencing a culinary extravaganza, as it was among the first genuine European restaurants in Bangalore.
The lavelle road outlet has shifted near smoke house deli now and is housed in a Bungalow.
They have both indoor and outdoor seating, pretty neat of course. I didn't explore the entire place and we just sat outdoors to enjoy some pleasant evening breeze of Bangalore.

Soon enough the waiter was at our table to take our order and we had some fruit punch, fresh lime soda and a mint leaves based drink. My wife ordered for a tom yung gung veg soup, which was a clear soup, not bad.


For starters we tried crostini with tomato and roast peppers and a Sunny's special of Chicken strips with aioli. The chicken was delightful, crunchy crust on the outside and soft well cooked chicken strips, 5 pieces in all.

The crostini bread though was a bit too hard, the tomatoes and roast peppers were fine but it was quite a struggle to bite through the crust, one which only our molars could accomplish leaving our incisors to nibble on the tomatoes alone.

For mains we ordered 4 dishes-
1. Penne with tomato puree and vegetables, which was as the name suggests, just everything put together in a bowl, taste was very average and puree was quite thin.
2. Vegetable medley with saffron rice was very bland and boring, there was nothing to excite the taste buds, it would be good if you want to have a light diet, but best to avoid this dish i'd say.
3. The chicken breast with sundried tomatoes was not bad, chicken was cooked right and it had a small serving of rice with it, nothing to write home about.
4. The penne with roast peppers and chicken was the best dish on the table, it was devoid of any sauce and my mother who usually dislikes pasta preferred this rendition.

Post dinner, we decided to try a couple of desserts. To add balance in taste we ordered a Chocolate coffee pecan decquoise and frozen key lime mousse with raspberry sauce and kiwi.
The lime mousse had a fresh lemony taste, but it would have been better if the base was thicker so that the taste of lemon wouldn't be overpowering like it was. It was a good dish but not one that everyone will relish.

The decquoise was wonderful. It had a great blend of coffee, chocolate and nuts packed in one. This was the most memorable dish of the night surely.


The bill per head will easily go above 1000 and it is surely one to be reserved for a special occasion.
My overall view is that Bangalore has now evolved into a major food destination and the younger competitors like SmokeHouse Deli and Toscano score over Sunny's in terms of food quality, so they better scale up a notch soon. I didn't feel it was worth the money spent.

Rating - 3/5