Restaurant: Spice circle in Spice Mall

Haven't written a review for some time now, so here goes.
I was doing lunch with spouse and parents, and was wondering about a good place to go. We thought about it, and then realized that one option is the fine dining restaurant called 'Spice Circle' in Spice Mall (Sector 25A, Noida). It has a buffet, but maybe they also allow ordering from the menu during lunch. Based on some discussionswith friends, I currently have the impression that any restaurant that introduces a buffet service does it because they are not getting enough people (an overly simplistic assumption I know).
Okay, so more about the Spice Circle buffet. When we entered, we saw the restaurant was half full, and very quickly, we were helped to a table. So far so good. Next we thought about it a bit and decided that we might as well go to the buffet. Started with soup, soup wasn't that good. My spouse being a vegetarian took a look at the vegetarian section, and did not find Indian vegetarian stuff with gravy and was disappointed.
Then my turn, somehow, out of the 7-8 options that were available, atleast 3 were empty. This did not too good, since in a buffet, it is important that the platters for each dish not be empty. I could see diners reminding the waiters about the empty dished, and I had to the same. Food quality was not bad, it's just that the service could have been much better.
The restaurant costs around Rs. 350 for the buffet, plus a service charge of approx. 10-12%; so I did not leave a tip. I have never understood why a restaurant charges a service charge; after all, we go there only to get service, and why this is charged extra never makes sense.

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Revolving restaurant in Delhi: Parikrama

When I was in my teens, and would watch an old movie like Naseeb, the thought would always come into my head about whether there is any kind of revolving restaurant in Delhi that I would see. It always seemed something very distant.
And then some years later I heard of Parikrama, located off Kasturba Gandhi Marg (known as Curzon Road in the past), very close to Connaught Place. I got a chance to see this restaurant some time back, and for the first time in my life, I was eating food while the ground under me was moving :-).
Okay, onto more details. This restaurant is on the 24th floor, and to reach there, you need to reach Antriksh Bhavan just next to the Hindustan Times Office. You need to take the entrance at the side of the building, and take the lift to the top.
The food is more expensive than normal, but the quality wasn't bad; I have eaten better elsewhere though. But the main thing is the view. Open the curtains and view the city of Delhi from a height as you may have never seen before.
The cuisine is Chinese, Continental and North Indian.
Contact number is: 011 - 23721616;
The restaurant timings are: Timings: 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm and 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm

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Delhi Transport Corporation

At one time, the only way you could get around Delhi if you did not have your own two-wheeler was through the buses of the Delhi Transport Corporation. There were no Blue Lines, no other private buses and no Metro. There was a constant pressure to make sure that a bus pass costing Rs. 12.50 (per month) was available that would allow free travel in DTC buses.
Now. there are other modes of travel, but Delhi Transport Corporation is still a big carried of people inside Delhi. DTC offers two types of travel services - IntraCity and InterCity.
IntraCity means services inside Delhi, something we are all aware of. These buses terminate at different bus terminals owned by DTC and cover the entire city. In fact, DTC has a web site for finding bus services between different locations inside Delhi, available at this link (many times the search does not work right, use the indirect route link at the bottom of the search result page).
InterCity means that DTC offers bus service to different states from the 3 main InterState bus terminals run by DTC. Details of this service are available at this link. A short summary:
1. ISBT at Kashmere Gate (Old Delhi): This is the original ISBT and is the primary route for DTC buses heading to Punjab & Jammu and Kashmir.
2. ISBT at Anand Vihar ISBT (East Delhi): This is the original point for all buses heading to Uttar Pradesh and Uttranchal. Currently, because of a dispute with Uttar Pradesh, DTC buses don't run on these routes, but private buses do.
3. ISBT at Sarai Kale Khan (South-East Delhi): Buses to Rajasthan and Haryana (although buses to Haryana run from a lot of locations within Delhi).

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Delhi Tourism: Razia Sultan tomb in Old Delhi

Razia Sultan was unique. She was the only woman monarch of Delhi, that too in a time period when such an event was unthinkable. She was born in 1205, and died in 1240 (and ruled only for 4 years). Maybe because she was a woman, she had to face rebellions, and was eventually defeated and killed after losing to her brother. Read this link for more details.
One would think that her grave would be an important place, given her significance in history, but her grave remains in neglect for a long time. The grave can be found close to the Sitaram Bazaar and the Kalan Masjid, and is located in Bulbuli Khane locale. The grave is raised on a raised platform within the premises of an open courtyard. On one side, there is a serene center for prayer. Nowadays, with the movement to improve the upkeep of historial monuments, there is a much greater focus on trying to improve the condition of the tomb.
The tomb is open from sunrise to sunset, and can be reached from the Chawri Bazaar metro station. The other option is to reach old delhi and take a rickshaw from there.

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Best night club in Delhi: Elevate

Delhi has often been accused of having a very limited night life; in fact a lot of people believe that the city shuts down by 9 PM. This may have been true in the past, but with the proliferation of malls and movie halls, such a statement is getting more difficult to make. The icing on the cake is the presence of night clubs / disc where people can groove and shake a leg till pretty late on night.
The one place in Delhi (or suburb) that can be said to be the most popular one is the nightclub known as 'Elevate'. Elevate is comparatively new, and is located on the 6th floor of the Center Stage Mall in Sector 18 Market of Noida.
Elevate is open till 4 AM, but does not have the concept of happy hours. The club has several different levels for different clientele and can accomodate around 2000 people in total. Elevate is however open only on weekends, and features international DJ's. Drinks average around Rs. 600. The nightclub has tremendous musical power, with upto 1,00,000 watts of power. The dance floor is called a Body Sonic Dance Floor with vibrations being induced in the dance floor through motors.

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Delhi Tourism: Qutub Minar

When anybody from outside Delhi comes visting, quite a few of them want to see the sights of Delhi, including places that are tourist worthy. One of the places in Delhi to see from a tourist point of view is the Qutub Minar.
Located in South Delhi near Mehrauli (in fact if you go straight on Aurobindo Marg towards South Delhi, you will reach the Qutub complex). The Qutub Minar is named after Qutb-ud-din Aibak who started the tower, and it was completed by Iltutmish.
The Qutub Minar is 239 ft high and has 5 storeys. The complex contains another marvellous item - a 2000 year old 7 m high Iron Pillar.
For more details, please click here.

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Play games in Delhi: Amoeba

Delhi has always suffered from a lack of good playing options for children. Now things are slowly starting to look up. There is a chain of kids gaming zones called 'Amoeba' that are sprouting in the various malls that are open across the city.
What do these gaming zones contain ? They have various types of machines such as racing machines (bikes and cars where you get on a seat and the seat movements guide you in the game displayed on the seat in front of you), sports games such as basketball (shooting balls into a hoop in a short period of time), air hockey, and numerous other games such as bring kids along with their parents to take part. Some of the Amoeba outlets also have bowling lanes, which will bring in a large number of teenagers and adults.
In fact, I just came back today from an Amoeba outlet in a nearby mall, and I am no kid, but I sure had fun. The games cost either Rs. 10 or 20 per play, and depending on performance in the games, you can pick up a variety of gifts.
As far as I know, the malls where Amoeba outlets are Spice Mall in Noida, Pacific Mall near Anand Vihar ISBT, Metropolitan Mall in Gurgaon, and maybe a couple others that I am missing. Shipra Mall in Indirapuram has a kids zone, but I am not sure whether it is an Amoeba outlet.

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Bookstore in South Extension

I am an ardent fan of reading, and am alwasy on the hunt for a new place from where I can get books, preferably at as low a cost as possible. This is not so easy nowadays, where the cost of a good book will be in the range of Rs. 300-500, hence making the buying of more books on a regular basis something of an expensive affair.
I was generally roaming around in the South Extension 1 market when I came across this bookstore that was selling a lot of books for the sum of Rs. 100 each. Now none of these books were in a pristine condition, even if they had not been read before, they had gone through some amount of weathering.
But I was hooked. Obviously in such a case, a lot of books would have been something that I would not be looking to buy, but I did come across a lot of books that I thought were worth buying, and I was soon trudging out of the bookstore with 11 books weighing down my hand, and some of these books were hard cover editions. I picked up books by Arthur C Clarke, Jonathan Kellerman, Robin Cook, Michael Critchon, and numerous others.
Where exactly was this located, this is right at the end of the South Extension 1 market, in the side closer to INA. It was located in the basement of a shop, but was fairly easy to locate once I was walking on the road in front of it since it had a banner flying high. So if you like books, and do not mind buying books that are not in a mint condition, then this is a good place to explore.

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Rajasthani restaurant in East Delhi

Today I had the chance of enjoying the food provided by a new Rajasthani restaurant in East Delhi (actually Ghaziabad technically). It goes by the unlikely name of 'Trinkets'. The spouse and me spent some time trying to figure out why this name, but gave up.
This restaurant is located in the Pacific Mall (right next to Anand Vihar ISBT), and is on the top floor, right next to the fine dining restaurant 'Bridge' (more about Bridge in another post). It seemed to be fairly new (meaning we had not seen it before), and when we climbed the stairs from the food court level to reach there, it seemed that the trouble was worth it.
The place was roomy and airy, with tables not cramped against each other. The waiters were dressed in Rajasthani type outfits. So we sat down, and asked about the food. They serve a thaali with all the traditional constituents such as bajre ki roti, daal, baati, chutney, and other Rajasthani food stuff. The actual constituents will keep changing on a regular basis. In addition, they serve water and chaach in earthen tumblers. At the conclusion of the meal, they serve you a sweet as well. The whole experience was pretty good, complemented by a troupe of 3 artists singing traditional songs.
What did all this cost ? It was not exactly very cheap, Rs. 175 per thaali (inclusive of tax), but my spouse came away from there with a positive experience, so the place gets a good mark in my notebook. And yes, they do not serve any bottled cola.

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Kake Da Hotel in Connaught Place

Kake Da Hotel is one of the landmark restaurants in Delhi. Located in Connaught Place in Delhi, it has in existence apparently since 1931, and boasts of a devoted group of fans who love to keep on coming back to this place time and time again.

How do you get there ? Pretty simple, it is located just before Super Bazaar, and is actually not in one of the circles of Connaught Place, but in the shops beyond the outer circle. So if you click the above map of Connaught Place to see it in more detail, even though you cannot actually see the restaurant, as you move on the road sorrounding Connaught Place, you will reach a chain of eating joints just before Super Bazaar, and Kake Da Hotel is right there (you can see it marked in red).

It is very famous for its Butter Chicken, and Delhi being a city with a strong dose of Punjabi culture, it is exceedingly popular. The place is not very fancy, so if you like nice decor and everything spic and span, this may not be the place for you.

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