This should have come out sooner. But I’m sure you will all forgive me, because…well each of you will have a different reason so I’m not going to get into that.
Naihar is pleased to welcome it’s newest contributor and the UK’s real princess, Dee Rawat. Like I said, this post has come in a little late, so Dee’s already got a head start with two solid posts: her homemade??Mango Cheesecake??(yum!) and a review of Bukhara of Samelsbury??(okay seriously, that cheesecake really looks delicious! Go ahead, click on the link already.). I’m told she also had a fair share to do with the large number of hits the Strawberry bite-size delights post received (including comments from the chef’s themselves).
With successes like these, she requires no introduction. But I thought I should give her one anyway. Welcome aboard!
I’d be amiss (read: dead) if I didn’t mention our other amazing contributors that continue to provide us with finger-licking content and the resulting army of views — a big thanks to Neelofer, Devina & Nikita. You guys rock, just like I do.
To begin with, this post is dedicated to a certain reader of the blog who, when asked for suggestions for improvement, complained that all our reviews are way to positive. Well, here we are, you pessimistic person you, our first negative review.
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At the behest of a close friend who had also never tried the place, my first lunch in Philadelphia after three years was at a place creatively called Currito Burrito, right on the??Drexel University??campus by the residence halls. This was housed in a new food court structure that had come up after I left the city. Oh, the excitement.
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Curbing my natural instincts to go to Subway — primarily because Subway in the US kicks Subway in the UAE’s behind by a mile and a half — I went for the “new Burrito place that is really good.”
Some considerations later, I went for what they called a Mediterranean Burrito, comprising rice, a Black Bean hummus and some other condiments. I wasn’t overtly impressed with the look and feel, or the way he was actually making my burrito at all. And the burrito, right, let me say it was the worst burrito I’ve had, and that graciously includes??my own home-made version.??
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I don’t really know what else to say except to avoid the place, and particularly the Mediterranean option. The burrito was dry, the rice was…is stuffy an appropriate word? And the flavors just did not work.
Father’s Day celebrations found me at a family favourite one Sunday evening. Bukhara in Samlesbury is commonly known as having ‘authentic’ Indian cuisine, though I have never figured out if the attributes of being ‘authentic’ referred to the chefs being south Asian, or the food being truly Indian inspired? Needless to say, we all have our favourites, and this is particularly busy haunt for the Asian communities in the North West.
For starters we ordered a meat feast of mixed grill, which consisted of lamb and chicken kebabs, tandoori chicken, lamb chops. This was accompanied by one of their signature dishes and a particular favourite of mine, as I have made it many a time at home, Thai mango salad. This salad is not as authentically Indian as it is Thai, but nonetheless a great accompaniment to the starters. The salad consisted of a carrots, peppers, onions and mangoes topped of with coriander, and a honey mustard dressing with red chili and pepper.
For mains we ordered Akbari chicken Masala which was extra hot, far too hot for my liking, but my father loved it; and Lahori ghost which was delicious, the lamb was perfectly cooked and the spices perfectly chosen to compliment this dish. the balance was just right. This was all served with fresh nan bread which was soft and brushed with butter. The new desserts menu was the highlight of my evening, I opted for the Apple tarte, another special on the menu, however it was a big letdown, as fussy me could tell that the apples were pre-prepared and had gone slightly brown. The family ordered traditional Indian falooda (a milk based dessert, with sago, rose water, and dumplings of kulfi ice cream inside it), the chocolate waffle meltdown which was amazing and probably one of the best things on the menu, and a mint parfait which was as standard as prepackaged ice cream desserts can get. The biggest fail on the menu I felt was the lack of locally sourced produce, mainly in the form of Huntley’s Ice cream, whose farm is a mere 1 mile up the road.
The ambiance was great, with a family oriented atmosphere, to a restaurant which is always busy and very lively of a weekend. If you’re in the North West of England, why not try this countryside gem, nestled in between dairy and sheep farms midway between Preston and Blackburn. It promises to be a find, and will not disappoint.
I’ve been a fan of Seesmic from rather early days. To me, they edged out TweetDeck as the Desktop Twitter client to have at the time, having launched support for multiple accounts and integrating Facebook support before anyone else did. Since then I’ve moved on to Seesmic Web(I’d recommend it any day considering it doesn’t use Adobe AIR. But I digress…)
I’ll leave the app comparison for another day, but I think Seesmic’s iPhone app’s first rendition is quite good overall.
The first thing that struck me about the app was the seemingly blazing response time, both in terms of loading new information and response using the touchscreen. By this I mean that a lot of apps I use (I’m not talking just Twitter apps) are effectively hung until their update/reload is complete — this does not seem to be the case here. While I wait for the latest tweets to be updated, I can still navigate around the app freely.
Let’s talk unique features. First up is the panel view. This is a fairly neat way of using one app to encompass multiple services. The panels are cleanly organized and easy to navigate. You can even setup a panel for a specific twitter search you follow, making it accessible with one click or swirl. You can navigate between panels by either using the panel button or merely side-swapping them. I thought it was cool that when you are looking at the panel, the faded screenshot is an actual live version of the feed on that panel.
Currently, Seesmic’s app allows you to quickly sign in to your Twitter, Facebook and Ping.fm accounts. Sure there is a facebook app, but from a “feed” point of view, Seesmic does a good job. I will not be surprised to hear additional services being integrated, least of all Foursquare, which Seesmic recently incorporated into their Web client. Seesmic also integrates with Evernote, allowing you to send tweets directly to Evernote (in addition to e-mailing them) if you want to save them. Seesmic also has a separate ReTweet tab in the main window, allowing you to view all twitter-style RTs in your timeline as a separate feed.
In comparison to other clients I’ve used though, I see a few lacking features.
Firstly, I’d have thought that it would have the ability for app sync, at least with Seesmic’s Web client &mdash for unread tweets, messages and the like. Seesmic’s app is also missing the conversation view, which is bizarre considering this is a standard feature on other apps and Seesmic themselves introduced this on their Web client. It is almost infuriating if you’re trying to track back on a conversation if you have to keep tapping the ‘in reply to’ button to see each tweet. This should have been covered from the get-go.
I also miss having unread counts. This is probably more or less a luxury feature, but I think we as a crowd are just used to having that. I’m perfectly okay with not knowing this for the regular feed, but not having this for @-replies and DMs is unnerving. They also did not include in-line previews (which adds clicks, not desirable on a phone app).
Having said that, I’m quite happy with their first version. I can’t be impressed enough with the speed of the app, and for a first run, they’ve done a good job. In my history with Seesmic, I find that they listen to their users and are quite dynamic in terms of releasing new features, so I expect the same to carry over to their iPhone app. If that happens, don’t be surprised if Seesmic’s iPhone app becomes the go-to app for aggregating social networking, beyond just twitter.
Guilty pleasures are a must for all. Mine is the humble cheesecake.??Whether it is shop bought or home made is always a sticking point for me. The love and care??I put into making cheesecakes at home, is what makes the end result worth the time I painstakingly spend in the kitchen. Here is a little something??I rumbled up today, with some Indian Alphonso mangoes, and??all the other everyday ingredients I found in my fridge or larder cupboard at home. With one exception, the first time??I had used fresh Vanilla pods, and??I must tell you my hands smelt amazing after de-seeding the pods.
A late night decision while skimming through a recipe got our family interested in making graduation cupcakes for the sibling marking his entry into the working world. Recession be damned, these chocolate goodys are topped with a nice slice of After Eight, and twizzlers matching the school colors.
(We went with ready cupcakes and toppings, but at least they do look like the convocation cap :P)
The best description I found for Mohanthal is gram-flour fudge. A traditional Gujarati sweet, Mohanthal is a soft, melt-in-your-mouth type of delicacy, very popular during certain Gujarati festivals like Navratri. This recipe is another??naihar specialty, made and distributed to perfection.
Picture the scene. Your big corporate meeting, people flying down from Europe for a day. Let’s all meet they said. We insist we have everyone. Schedule for late Thursday afternoon? Super.
I coordinate with a local contact to attend. Oh, I can’t make it, I have to pick up my kids Thursday afternoon. Right. How about a different time? Yea, that’s fine.
My battery proceeded to die in the evening. So he called me, and I missed it. Around 10 p.m., when I got around to checking e-mail, I see a “I was expecting a call from you.” There was another e-mail regarding a project our companies were partnering on. I had an issue with it, and it was urgent, so I replied questioning his e-mail.
His response five minutes later: “I did not hear back from you regarding the meeting.” I replied I did not get a confirmation so I will get back to him on that in morning. And well, you didn’t answer my question.
I message him after the meeting was confirmed in the morning. He proceeds to call me and say “This is why I was trying to call you yesterday. I can’t make the new time” Eh, what now?!
Fine, you can’t make it. But what am I supposed to figure out when you say I didn’t hear back from you on the meeting. Instead of typing that, why didn’t you type that you couldn’t make the time. Instead of typing “waiting for your call”, couldn’t you have bloody told me what the problem was so when I did check it, I could react?
Let me add that 15 minutes after the scheduled time, he called me. When I returned the call, he told me he wanted to know how the meeting had gone. Er. Did you not propose the time that you then cancelled? You *knew* I’d be in the meeting because it was on your damned calendar as well.
And we wonder why we don’t get a lot of stuff done here. Even though I’m on topic, I will not discuss our favorite telco provider today. But seriously, what is it with simple professionalism around these parts. Why is it so painfully lacking. Inform people what to do, what you want. Communicate! Telling me I’m being transparent with you doesn’t make you that, by the way.
If I wasn’t leaving out the country for two weeks, I’m fairly certain another post on customer service would be on its way. Until then, make do with this happy excerpt I received the other day:
Japanese attitude for work:
If someone can do it, you can do it too :) If no one can do it, you must do it!
Arabic version:
If someone can do it, let him do it! If no one can do it, why should I do it?
And yes, this was forwarded quite graciously by an Arab.
Living by yourself during your University days are a great way to bring out the hidden cook in you. Searching for simple, effective recipes for one can be a fun challenge, especially when you try to emulate something you see in a restaurant or cafe.
Presenting a sample of the good ol’ days, if we can call them that, the Black bean burrito. I really didn’t want to leave the house this morning, and I managed to find black beans, mushrooms, onions, some greens, oat wraps and this is very important ??? cheese ??? so I set to work.
Witness the end results taken with my phone camera. And yes, that’s Whittard’s Mango & Passionfruit Iced tea gleaming by the side. Yes, iced tea can gleam, thank you very much.
If you’ve been following this blog (you have, haven’t you? Fine, say that you have?), you’ll know I’m a sucker for iced tea. So after having iced tea a few times at Whittard of Chelsea at Festival City in Dubai, I finally succumbed and picked up this little wonder.
Ah, Whittard’s iced tea from the comfort of my own home.??
After looking at the mouth-watering Mango and curried chick pea salad captured in Chirag’s post, I decided to try my hand at it. So with the help of my mom, I marched into the kitchen with laptop displaying the recipe. What happened next was a blur of cumin seeds, coriander, mangoes, chickpeas, mom telling me (okay okay, screaming) for almost breaking the mini-blender (I WAS EXCITED, OKAY? Hmph) and spinach leaves. And the end result as you can see is the pic! I have to give credit to my mom. She did most of it…I only stirred in the spices, onion and squeezed out the lemon.
Sorry, but that had to be the first word in this post. Say hello to a nice quiet North Indian meal with some of our absolute specialties. Highlights from the evening include delicious Paneer Tikkas — that looked so good I couldn’t stop taking shots — cooked on charcoal.
For the main course, we had Methi Kofta in Chana Curry, Navratan Korma and Jeera Aloo, pictured in that order.
If you aren’t salivating already….well….Oh sorry, I was busy drooling.
And…Google’s at it again. You have to give these guys marks for creativity. Screencaps from today’s pacman’d logo, which also lets you play the game, in 1- and 2-player modes. Brilliant.
Right, so my post refers to this article, written about this event. (see also this). It’s fairly obvious from the comments section of the article that I felt rather strongly about the way it was written, because it represented very poor journalism on various grounds. Rather than go point by point on the issues I had with the article (I tried starting the post that way, but boy did it get too long), I’ve decided to approach it from another angle.
Before I do that, let me start by saying I did not agree at all with the policy in question. Refusing entry — based on clothing, especially if that clothing has cultural or religious significance — to a networking event, isn’t right. I don’t know if the venue should have been different, or something. To be honest, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword: the law attempts to protect the culture and us, as humans, want to be treated equally and not denied entry to networking events.
If you don’t know them already, allow me to introduce you to the Society of Professional Journalists. I’ll let you read on-line what the organization stands for, but I’m going to bring up, in detail, their code of ethics.
Preamble
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society’s principles and standards of practice.
It’s straightforward enough. You can argue that it’s a US-based organization, but believe me when I say these code of ethics pass around as a great framework in journalistic circles.
Let’s delve right in. I’ve highlighted just the pertinent points.
Seek Truth and Report It
Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information. Journalists should:
Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
The writer left out the fact that the source in the article actually made it in to the event (after removing her scarf). That changes the feel of the article altogether. The writer states that she did not have that information at the time of writing the article. Eh? She interviewed the source either during the event or after it. The source had already gotten in at the point.
More importantly, the writer intentionally left out the fact that she herself had been denied entry. Massive whoa, in my opinion.
Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.
She posted the organizer’s twitter post. Yay. She claims she contacted the organizers. I have it from the organizers (and it’s evident from one of the comments) that
she did not contact them during or after the incident
they would have let her in to the event had she just contacted them during the event itself since all organizers were available (surprise, surprise)
I also know for a fact — I heard this myself on the radio the day before — that the organizers announced they were having issues with the hotel about letting people with kanduras in. It was a hotel policy (and common for this region for a place serving alcohol). People may have missed out on that, but it was her job to verify that this has indeed been announced before she wrote about it.
Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.
I know, I know, the headline could go either way. But to me, the headline questioned the authenticity of the event itself. Well first, that is not under question in the article at all. I was at the event. Two, she never made it in to find out?
Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.
Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
I’m clubbing these two together since they don’t exactly go on the article, but they do go on her responses during the comments. Moving on.
Minimize Harm
Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect. Journalists should:
Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
No real bearing on the post itself, but you know, I thought I should put that out there. But wait, here’s my favorite part.
Act Independently
*guffaw*
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know. Journalists should:
Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
Right, who wants to go first? All through the comments, the writer continued to argue that by a) not mentioning that she had been refused entry and b) sticking to a what happened-quote-response format, there had been no compromise.
Dear writer, read this about three times first. Now I’ll say it again. By being a victim of the incident, you now have a conflict of interest, and are directly associated with the issue at hand, thereby compromising integrity of the article. This is not a point of discussion. This is a fact. She could not, could not, write the article. Period.
What’s more, she intentionally left out the part about being refused entry herself. Intentionally. (She says she did so, so that the article could be unbiased. Duh..what now?)
Be Accountable Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other. Journalists should:
Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.
Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.
So she allowed us to comment. But she didn’t take it as a dialog. She kept telling everyone there had been no bias, asking us to point out the offending comment in the article. (My gawd woman, you could not write the article itself, at all. How are you not getting this?)
Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
Hah. Yeah. That.
Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.
Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.
Yea well. I’ve put that up there, but I realize that point one is useless since she can’t see it herself. And that fact makes point two moot.
Soon after my comments on the article, I was contacted by one the organizers. Why? Because they were upset that their hard work had been put to shame. More importantly, because they had not even been contacted about their response to the accusations in the article. Or during the event to see if the issue could be resolved.
It’s a trivial issue you say? Actually, I don’t think so. Sure, the accusations laid on a media company for a networking event are hardly life-endangering. But the core principle is the same — this was pathetic journalism. Arguing that at Oxford (which doesn’t have a journalism program I understand), she was taught that creative writing spices up journalism makes this even more laughable. They’re separate things. I would know. I’ve worked in journalism. I studied creative writing.
She then turned around to say well, it was an entertainment piece. What? Really? Because it reads like it was meant to be a news article. She said so herself at the start.
I could really go on and on. No, really. I had at least five additional points in my original blog post. The article was terribly executed, but more importantly, horrendously skewed. I’ve found 12 points of issue with an ethics code for journalists. TWELVE. *sigh*
For the record, I’m not in this for the publicity (I’m not posting this on twitter since this isn’t about attracting attention), or to attack anyone personally. I do not know the writer, directly or indirectly. But I’ve looked her up. And I’ve learnt that she actually serves as a business development executive for the Web site in question, and will be speaking about the future of journalism at a panel next week.
I’ll conclude with a line I haven’t used in a while.
I weep for the future.
Note: Just to put it out there, I’m not making these arguments without some background. I’ve written news stories, opinion pieces, copy-edited, done entertainment pieces and served as editor-in-chief, spanning three years. Sure, you can argue that it was a college newspaper, but I’ll argue back that it was a weekly 28- to 36-page hard work per week, with no funding provided by the University at all (we did this to maintain unbiased reporting about the Univeristy). We were a recipient of the ACPPacemaker finalistaward in 2004 during my stay there — an award conferred that year to 25 newspapers among the 1000s around the country — and we followed the AP Styleguide. I could go on, but suffice to say we weren’t just kidding around.
MAJOR EDIT, May 23: Surprise, Surprise. Upon visiting the article today, I learnt that some later comments have now been deleted. I didn’t save the article (yes seriously, who’d want to preserve that anyway), so all I was able to compare are screenshots of the current article and a cached copy from Google. So much for the “Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant” I mentioned earlier.
Mugg & Bean makes for a nice snazzy little outlet based in Abu Dhabi Mall. It’s quite unfortunate actually that they’ve shut down their branches anywhere except Abu Dhabi. With a menu that boasts a variety of options for every meal of the day, it is a bit of a wonder why they didn’t exactly take off as a concept.
It also helps that there aren’t too many options in Abu Dhabi, unlike Dubai, where you can stop for a bite or a quick drink and also be able to work. Although for the size of the place, having exactly 2 power outlets is quite a negative point (no pun intended). If you aren’t lucky, you’re stuck without one, which is useless if like me, your laptop battery doesn’t have much of a life. Surely they’ve heard of a multiple outlet??surge protector???
Pictured above is their Egg salad with Spring Onion Mayo sandwich pair. Makes for a nice quick bite to eat midway through the day, even if it is a bit difficult to eat as the bread gets soggier with time and it’s an open sandwich.
Why I’m sold? Well, they have bottomless iced tea. Precious little beats that in my book, I’m afraid.
