My favoutite Apple cinnamon tea :D

So I am really excited right now as I'm drinking my favourite flavour - apple + cinnamon :D :D which I have managed to prepare in (just) 2 attempts :)

So basically I was introduced to this amazing thing in Mumbai outside Prithvi theatre.. and after that I couldn't find it anywhere. You can get apple ice-tea or cinnamon tea but not this neat version! I decided to try out. It was a very simple recipe :

Ingredients: (for 1 med size cup serving)
1 slice apple
half cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1 cup water
sugar/sweetener (optional)
half teaspoon tea leaves
NO milk

Process:
Boil half cup water in two places. In one put pieces of apple, cinnamon stick and 2 cloves. After water starts boiling, sim the gas, cover and leave for 2 minutes. In the other pan, boil water and put tea leaves once water starts boiling. After half a minute or so, mix the two (obviously through a sieve) and sweeten if you want. Tea is ready :) Serve hot and enjoy the awesomeness !!
Loving it..

PS: In my first attempt, I had put 1 spoon tea-leaves so it became somewhat bitter :(

We are (not) dancing

To give a little bit of context, I had started Jazz dance in my final year at IIT with Danceworx. That was my first encounter with any Western form of dance (solo) and I was really loving it. Although I wasn't exceptionally good, but I used to stay for extra hours and was a sincere student so I was even considered for promotion to the 2nd level after 4 months. But I had to leave Delhi so I had to leave Danceworx then.

Then I went to Mumbai and joined Danceworx there as well.. but it wasn't great there. First of all there was a space crunch (like everywhere else in Mumbai) and secondly the instructor was self-obsessed and so she was never able to comment/advise on how well we were doing. And I did not see any growth in my dancing even after 3 months. So I quit there and was not able to find any other school after that.

After coming to Bangalore, I thought I will just go to any Jazz class and will at least keep in touch. So after being in Bangalore for 2 months, I just browsed Justdial and based on proximity + reviews, I decided to join Swingers. It was very close, only about 1-1.5km from my home. And it turned out to be awesome! I came to know that I'm just lucky to stay close by, people come from as far as 15km as well. And it is absolutely amazing, although it is not a big brand like Danceworx but the instructors there are really top class. It has been 4 months now and everyday I used to look forward to the next class.

But the reason I am sad and the reason I am writing this post is because I have missed the 6th class in a row today :( The classes are only on Saturday and Sunday, which means I have not gone there for around 20 days now. I don't know how I could have avoided. So the first weekend I missed was because of Thailand trip organized by Google. Now obviously I wouldn't miss a trip like this for 2 dance classes. Then next weekend, three of my oldest friends were coming over to Bangalore from three different places. Now, I could have gone for the classes, like we were in town all the time and were at home as well. But I just thought it would be too selfish on my part. They had only come for 2 days and I also had to go to a family function in between for 3 hours. So I thought they would not understand if I now sayI can't even miss a dance class.

Then this weekend I was at my cousin's place. My chachi's daughter lives here and my chachi had come this weekend to meet her. Yesterday we went shopping, we had left at 10 in the morning and I thought I would finish in time to attend my class. But we were not done and then again I did not want to say that I am leaving in between. So yesterday's class got missed and what to say about today, I just got lazy! :(
I know it is not such a big deal but the worse part is that I will attend the next 2 classes (hopefully) and then miss all classes till 3rd November as I'm going home. I'm really disappointed, I used to love going there and I'm missing the place like anything. Let me post some part of this song.. I just love the way the dancers are moving on releve in the video..

When the going starts to get rough
And you feel like you've had enough
Let the music take control of your soul
Take a chance and do what you feel
Your a force they cannot live without it
You gotta break the chain yeah yeah

There's a passion inside
An inner strength that drives
Can't nobody take that away from you
It's the greatest high
You set the floor on fire when you come alive

And we're dancin'
And it feels alright
I can't control my desire
And we're dancin'
And it feels alright
Yeah
And we're dancin'
And it feels alright
Can't hold me down
Gotta reach for the sky
And we're dancin'
And it feels alright
Yeah

Zomato

Zomato

I have always been impressed by Zomato, the idea and the implementation, both. 1 large reason there is me being a foodie :D (yes, vegetarians can be foodies!!) But yes I was never so much into any of the other similar ones like Burrp! because of the reasons I will mention now.

1. Coolness factor

When we want to go out and have good food, we are in a fun mood and not in a research mode. So we want the information to be presented in a cool, colorful and fun way and not like a boring directory listing. I think that is what takes me to typing 'zomato.com' in my browser everytime I want to know anything about eating out. The name, logo, the pictures, the colour combinations and the overall look and feel appeals to me and my friends. I really like the interface which is displayed after putting in the keywords. The font is quite apt and the icons are cute :)

2. Menus and more but not too much

So, as I said I want good information about eating joints but I am not interested in heavy research. I want somebody else to do the research and then present the to-the-point information to me, and thats exactly what Zomato gives me. Everything that is there on the page about a restaurant and it is not too much information. I totally love the menus! Then the phone numbers, cost, timings, home delivery option, reviews and ratings, location etc are all 'in your face'. I don't have to make random clicks to get to these stuff. I saw there was a feature 'Is this open now' which again is quite relevant and innovative.

3. Feedback received graciously

So, as I will mention later, sometimes there is a lag in content update. So I once reported such an error. First of all no login was required! That I think is quite a good and simple idea. I really don't understand why you need somebody to register to give feedback on other sites. Anyways coming back, I was really impressed because I got a mail saying you have reported this error and we will look into it. Then there was a follow-up mail saying the update has been done. I don't know how scalable this is but it was really impressive and I think this increases trust with the website. Also, it motivates users to give feedback and suggestions.

So far so good. As I am quite a regular customer of Zomato [:)], here are a few areas of development I would like to point out.

1. Outdated content is a turn off

So, my friend and I were planning to order food one day and I introduced her to this cool and awesome website called 'Zomato'. She was also quite impressed by the points (1) and (2) above and we went ahead and placed our order at one of the listed restaurants. Now our decision was to some extent based on the prices on the website menu. When the food was delivered, we came to know that it was 1.5 times more expensive than what was quoted on the website. Their menu had changed. This was annoying because this happened with me for the 3rd time and my friend, who was all ga-ga over Zomato some time back was quite angry now :( I don't know what is your update cycle but I feel it will be better to have the content more dynamic if possible. One possible solution is to give restaurants a handle to the website so that they can upload their most recent menu/other info when there is a change or contact Zomato and ask them to update the content.

2. The first page search boxes

Because I have been a Foodiebay customer, I am ok with the new UI but very frankly if I was a brand new customer, I would not get so much impressed with the search boxes. I don't understand what is the difference between 'search' and 'explore' and why exactly you need 3 search fields when you can actually specify at max 2 parameters. I maybe being too picky here but frankly it is confusing to me. The dotted line in between, I don't know what is its purpose :P My suggestion would be to have one drop down for location, and one more box in which you can specify anything. It will be better to parse the user input and figure out whether it is a cuisine or restaurant or both. Then the 3rd box says 'by name or cuisine or location', then what was the purpose of the first 2 boxes ???? I would say first impression is last impression that is why this should be a serious consideration.

3. Discount coupons/ More marketing

This will be a very big attraction. I got 20% discount on a Chinese restaurant because of Zomato and it really helped me in remaining loyal to the website for quite some time after that. I used to look out for any similar offers on the home page. I don't know how easy/difficult it is to convince restaurant for these but this I think is one feature I would look forward to. I also think you should go for more aggressive marketing.

So that's my feedback. I saw the Events (Beta) thing and again, I am super happy :) All the best Zomato! Waiting for the mugs/iPad now ;)