Date Night & BBQ

On Friday, we headed to Mount Kisco for dinner at Cafe of Love. We had been there once before had a good time. I made a reservation early afternoon as we were once turned away on a Friday night. I really enjoyed the complimentary bread bar, especially the bean dip. I also like dining at a restaurant that openly supports the local farmers and tries to educate the customers about the food in season. It was noteworthy moment when, the mom seated at the table next to ours, was reading the posted list of available fruits and vegetables to her elementary schools kids. I ordered a small plate of ravioli and Nelson had the stake. The service was fast and despite the mixed reviews I read on chowhound, we had a positive experience.

For dessert we had frozen yoghurt from YoGoBerry, a place which we had just discovered. The concept was similar to pink berry except that it was self serve. We could mix any amount of flavors and toppings and pay by the weight. I didn't like the other flavors we tried(strawberry, cappuccino) as much as I liked the original and as Nelson noticed the yoghurt wasn't too frozen as it melted within mins. Mount Kisco has a nice downtown and this was a perfect spring day to walk about. But I wish there was a place to sit and have some coffee or dessert after a nice meal. In the end we headed to Borders.


On Sunday we headed to Liz & Keith's home in Woodbridge CT for a much awaited get together. We were celebrating Keith's doctorate and meeting up with Nelson's high school friends after a long while. We had a fantastic evening with great food & conversation. We need to do this more often!

Singapore & KL tour

On new year's day this year we left on a 5 day/4 night tour of Singapore & KL. We flew from Colombo to Singapore on a red eye flight. We had a great tour guide who picked us from the airport and brought us to our hotel near the Little India area. Very early in the morning we walked around the Mustafa Shopping Center,a 24-hr shopping mall selling a variety of merchandise. We had breakfast at one of the many of roadside cheap eateries with Indian flavored foods. The rest of the day was spent on the famed Orchard Road. The lightening and x-mas decor were amazing at night. This was an ultimate hub for retail with large number designer stores and shopping malls in a densely packed area. even in very crowded areas, the city lived up to it's theme of being "safe, green & clean." We did some shopping followed by a very expensive Chinese meal that included Peking duck prepared at the table side.

Next morning we had a city tour with our tour guide driving us to various points of interests such as the colonial buildings, the new opera houses, Sinagapore Flyer, merlion statues and Buddhist temple.This was a multi cultural city just like Colombo but eons ahead in terms of urban planning.In the evening we headed to Sentosa Island, an island resort with a Universal theme park. We enjoyed the sea lion show and many marine life exhibits at the Underwater World, had a glorious view of the surrounding seaports on the sky tower, did the luge and sky ride and watched the laser show "Songs of the Sea" After a good night's sleep we headed to KL on a 5 hr bus ride next morning.


The ride to KL was very peaceful and we arrived in KL during major rush hour. The crowded streets with trash on the sides were a stark contrast to the orderly streets of Singapore.BB plaza & Sungei Wang located near the Times Square area. The number of shops selling knock off designer items was surprising no matter how much I expected it. The scale of it surpassed every china town I had been to in the US. Our bargaining skills were pretty bad so we didn't end up doing too much shopping.

Next morning we set off to visit Genting Highlands. Along the way, we stopped at a pewter factory and passed by a Hindu temple and saw the largest Vishnu statue I've ever seen. One of the distinct features of Genting was the cable car ride to and from the highlands. The resort was large with an indoor and outdoor theme park, lots of shopping, casinos and hotels. The rides wouldn't be too impressive for anyone experienced with American theme parks but the location gave it a unique flavor. My foot spa treatment with live fish was a memorable experience. In the evening we walked to the Petronas towers which were truly spectacular. Though the towers were closed we had dinner at Suria KLCC, an upscale mall with real designer stores. One of the highlights of this trip was the Nasi Goreng I enjoyed on several occasions. We didn't have much time or the energy to explore the city of KL as much as I would have liked to. We were exhausted and partially ill from all the travelling the past few weeks. But I'm even more resolved to tarvel to this part of the world sooner rather than later.

Home in Sri Lanka

Our long awaited trip to Sri Lanka was during our x-mas break last year. Even though it was months ago, I wanted to document our trip on this blog and remember all the places we visited. The food at all the hotels and restaurants was amazing. I wonder when we will get a chance to go back again.

Kandy: This is was our only stop in the hill country. We stayed at Earl’s Regency Hotel and visited The Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic and drove about Kandy town.


Dambulla: It was amidst a lot of rain that we drove from Kandy to Dambulla. Our first night was spent at Amaya Lake hotel. The second night was at Kandalama. We visited the Golden Temple and the Rock Temple during our stay.


Pinnawala Elephant’s Orphanage : On our way back from Dambulla, we stopped at Pinnawala right on time to see the elephants being taken to the river for their bath. We also saw the feeding of baby elephants by their caretakers.

The Blue Water : We spent x-mas at Blue Water resort in Wadduwa. We got a chance to experience the magnificent beaches and the Indian ocean.

Down south To Katharagama: We drove along the coast from Colombo with stops at Deundara and staying over night at Tissa. We attended the night pooja at the Katharagama temple and headed out on a safari at Yala next morning.
Peacocks, elephants, buffaloes, deer, fox and crocodiles were some noteworthy sightings. On the way back we drove through Uda Walawe and saw the elephants by the fence of the National Park.

Colombo: Though we were travelling about for most of our trip we had a little time to drive around Colombo, go shopping and spend time with friends. I miss my city!

Around NY & CT

The weekend started rather late on Saturday as I slept in. It was late afternoon as we headed to check out the Portugal Day in Ossining downtown. Though much smaller than the Ossining village fair last weekend, we were surprised by the fact that a Portuguese community that warranted its own festival actually existed in our town.
I had my favorite Portuguese food, grilled sardines while Nelson ordered a "bifana" (a sandwich with pork cutlet). There were a couple of jewelry stalls and I bought a new pair of earrings for $4!

Then we headed to Spring Valley theaters for the evening show of Ravaan. Though it didn't garner as much viewer appreciation as Rajneeti, I still wanted to see this Mani Ratnam epic on the big screen.
I enjoyed the cinematography and the brilliant acting by Aishwarya & Vikram. I found Abhishek quite entertaining even though he has been criticized by critics. I didn't enjoy the music as much as I have with other Mani Ratnam/AR Rahaman collaborations. On our way back we picked up the last big piece of furniture for our living room from Best Buy in Palisades and grabbed a quick dinner at Lefteris in Tarrytown just before the kitchen shut down.

On Sunday we met my in-laws for lunch at Lisboa restaurant in Waterbury, CT, a midway point between our two homes.
We had a great Portuguese meal that included caramel pudding, one of my all time favorite desserts. After lunch, we headed to Ives farm in Cheshire hoping to pick some strawberries. Unfortunately we were a couple of weeks too late even though it is technically still the season. So we headed to the Cheshire mall for our fall back family activity!

Ravaan poster courtesy of: log.ivinay.com/post/528118781/raava-movie-poster

Bollywood Rules

I was so excited have to Adity over for the weekend. We met on the first day of orientation at MHC and have been friends ever since. Bollywood news and movies tend to dominate a significant portion of our conversations so it was truly fitting that we saw Rajneeti, the first big hit of the year together. Before heading to Spring Valley for the movie we dropped by the Ossining town fair downtown. I had been waiting for this since last year especially for the kettle corn. For dinner we got takeout from Ambadi's. The food was really good and gave us enough energy to stay up till 4am watching old Bollywood hits.
On Sunday we had a quick brunch at The Patio Restaurant at Briarcliff. There were good brunch and lunch offerings at very reasonable prices. Then we had some gelato at the Ossining Pizzaria before dropping off Adity at the train station. This gelato which is s homemade has even been written about in the westchester section of the NYT. I expect to be visiting this place more often this summer even if it is to just take a look at the luscious mounds of ice cream in beautiful pastel colors!

In the evening we attended a birthday party at my co-workers house for his two year old daughter. Isn't she one of the cutest kids you've ever seen?


Rajneeti picture courtesy of http://letzindia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/rajneeti.jpg

Meetup in the City

On Friday evening I headed to the city for a long awaited meetup with some of my best friends. We met at Ali Baba, a turkish restaurant in Murray Hill. It had a great selection of mostly meat dishes and we all settled different versions of lamb. It was busy as expected on Friday night, but was a good place for us to sit and chat. After dinner we walked around the corner to LaSalle on 3rd Ave for dessert. Out of the many ice cream and sorbet selections, the pretty pink watermelon sorbet caught our eye. It was really, really good! I'm still craving it!!!It was really great to have a mini reunion before Manjari's wedding.

Season's Sushi Buffet

On Sunday we had brunch at Season's Japanese Bistro. It was all you can eat for $14.99. There were several appetizers and sushi rolls available. The food was great and we were completely full by the time we left!

A Perfect Summer Day in the City

This was a fantastic weekend. We really had it all; great company, good food and nice weather! On Saturday we headed to the city with one of our dear friends who was visiting us before heading off to greener (not literally because she is moving to AZ) pastures after completing grad school. Our first stop was in Chinatown for dim sum at Oriental Garden. Nelson had picked it based on its online reviews and it was right next to Jing Fong, one of the larger dim sum restaurants that we had been to last summer. There was a great selection of seafood dishes and I was introduced to taro, a new dish that I liked very much. The picture menu with descriptions in English was very helpful. Dim sum is such a reasonable dining option as all we eat cost us only around $20 per person. Then we walked downtown through Wall Street towards South Street Seaport on a sight seeing mission.

The South Street Seaport is a very busy place in the summer There seem to be several event or promotions going on at all times. We went up to the food court for a brief rest and snack as we enjoyed beautiful views of the river. The many cruise boats caught our eye and I made a mental note to take one over to the Statue if Liberty & Ellis island before the end of the summer.Water Taxi around Manhattan and had a great time. Last year we took the It is a fun way to go around with its all day hop on-hop package. However, you're not guaranteed a nice spot on the deck as they are pretty crowded on weekends. We had a nice conductor who let us hang out in the open area in the back take some pictures. Also if you may be in trouble if you miss one ride as it is on an hourly schedule. It happened to us at this very spot last year and we ended up taking a long walk to Battery park. We were down the same path again as we headed to see the Charging Bull at the Bowling Green park.

In the late evening, we headed uptown to walk around Central Park. It is always a great place to take a walk and the scenery makes me want to capture it every single time.For dinner, we headed to Union Square for Thai food. Spice is a branch of a trendy Thai restaurant brand in NYC, with contemporary decor and very affordable, Americanized dishes. Most dishes which are in the $7-15 range are generous portions of good food. This was our second time eating here and our positive views were reaffirmed. Though initially, we thinking of extending the night, we decided to head back as we didn't want our friend to travel too late in the night all by herself.

Conan- Legally prohibited from being funny on tv

As an early b'day present for Nelson, I got tickets for us to see Conan during his stopover in NYC. We headed to the city after work and grabbed a quick dinner at Blockheads on 2nd Ave.This was also our first event at the Radio City Music Hall.
The opening act was Reggie Watts who I hadn't seen before. He was as offendingly funny as comics can be. Though it a while for Conan to come on, he was definitely entertaining.I wasn't familiar with his show, but did enjoy his act esp the several musical numbers. A few surprise guests stopped by and what made my night was seeing Eli Manning & John Krasinski. We also got to see Conan really close as he made his rounds at the end.

Touring Montreal- Day2

On day 2, we took the Metro to the Biodome around midmorning. We were quite shocked by the very long line that spiraled the entire building. But it moved relatively quickly. This maybe have been due to 30th of May being the free museum day in the city. The building that housed the Biodome was constructed as the velodrome for the 1976 Olympics adjacent to the Olympic stadium. In the early 90s it was converted to the indoor nature exhibit. We walked through replicas of eco-systems in the Americas. The tropical forests and the penguins from the Antarctic region were particularly noteworthy.

Around lunch time, we were at the Jean-Talon Market. It is large Farmer's market selling every kind of food item you can possibly imagine, along with many eateries. We had lunch there starting with chocolate éclairs and then some freshly fried tiny fish. A tasting of fried curd cheese from a stall was really a little piece of heaven.

It had gotten warmer as the day progressed, so we took the bus up Mont Royal, a mountain in the city. We walked to the main lookout center that had beautiful views of the city. Then we took a trail to the "Croix" which I mistook to mean a castle in French. So imagine our surprise when we see a giant cross at the end! The stairs leading down the mountain took us towards McGill University. We walked through the campus and dropped by the campus museum which seemed to be open to the public.

We had dinner on Saint Catherine Street, a vibrant street full of bars, restaurants and gay clubs. I loved the lively atmosphere and the colorful decor. Since it was our last meal in the city, I had to have more poutine!

Next morning we drove back through a different route. Luckily there was no wait at the border this time around. We visited a friend who had moved to Potsdam and spent time walking through the Clarkson campus. It was around 1am when we finally got home, tired but definitely rejuvenated

Touring Montreal- Day1

Our first venture was to the Old Montreal, a historic part of the city bordering the St. Lawrence river. This part of the city was so European with its cobblestone roads, people eating and drinking on restaurant patios, and artistic fare on sale by the roadside.The weather was great and we had lunch outdoors at Montreal Poutine. I really enjoyed my highly anticipated dish of Poutine (french fries with curd cheese and gravy)and Nelson had smoked meat sandwich, another Montreal staple. We walked by the lake towards Bonsecours Market, adjacent to the chapel which were impressive buildings from the 1900 era. I expected the market to be like Boston Commons but it was pretty empty except for some drab touristy shops. Our next stop was the majestic Notre Dame Basilica. We were lucky that a private ceremony was going on as we managed to sneak in for a few minutes and take in the breath taking architecture without having to pay a fee. Being a Saturday evening, we saw at least three couples who were getting married on the Old Montreal area.

The Underground City which is the largest in the world was quite impressive. It is a shopping haven in the winter months. But because we were there late on a Saturday evening, all the shops were closed. We walked through many interconnected building and then crossed a bridge to enter Montreal's Chinatown. Wherever you are, the Chinatown offers the same familiar atmosphere. We got some of our usual favorites, bubble tea for me, custard bun for Nelson and some cake for later. It is impossible to resist these deliciously cheap snack options.

Walking further downtown past another beautiful church, we passed by Cathdrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde. We ended up Rue Crescent, a busy street with lots of shopping, bars and restaurants in a Victorian architecture setting. It had a mix of upscale and collegetown like feel. We decided to eat at Sir Winston Churchill Pub, one of the many places with patio seating. The food was good but it was strange to not have unlimited soda refills. Tired from all the walking, we took the metro back to our hotel.

On Route to Montreal: Saratoga Springs & Lake George

On Friday, we left YKT around 6pm and headed North towards Albany. We arrived in Saratoga Springs just in time for dinner. It was a charming town with a large number of spas on either sides of the main road. The downtown was relatively busy with several clothing, antique and souvenir stores, along with many restaurants. We wandered past nice park in the middle of town on the way to Wheatfields, Nelson's pick for dinner. This was an Italian restaurant that supported local farmers and we really enjoyed our dinner. My five cheese ravioli was to die for! It really is one of the best I've ever eaten. This was also one of the cheaper options and completely worth every dollar.

We headed back North to Travelodge in Lake George where were spending the night. Next morning, we wandered around the lake and Fort William Henry as I got a mini history lesson about the French & Indian war. The town was already busy with visitors for the long weekend. Towards mid morning we were on our way to the Canadian border. Crossing the border was a painfully slow process and took more than an hour. We finally arrived in Montreal early afternoon and checked into Hotel Le Saint-Andre our cheap but nice, clean and centrally located hotel.