Click Here!

Blog & Web Directory on India		 Click here
    
Advertise    SI Web Directory    Home    About Us     Facebook    Twitter

Biryani Cart NYC – Lovely Biryani, Lousy Kati Roll

 Food, Reviews  13 Responses »
Nov 302009
 
Share

(Recommended by SI reader Satya)

After watching Akshay Kumar’s latest nightmare a.k.a De Dana Dan the other day, we were in desperate need of some cheering and comforting.

So after the crappy movie ended, we walked up a few blocks from AMC Empire 25 on 42nd St to the latest New York City landmark – Biryani Cart, at the intersection of 46th St & 6th Ave in Midtown Manhattan (near Nandita Khanna’s rathole Utsav).

Biryani Cart – A Streetside Affair

The Biryani Cart is not a regular NYC sit-down Indian restaurant but a roadside food cart that has found favor with many people working in Midtown as well as Times Square tourists.

It was around 1.45PM, there was a steady drizzle and the sidewalks were crowded with office-goers heading home early for Thanksgiving.

The light rain notwithstanding, there were about 8 or 9 people waiting at the Biryani Cart for their spice-fix.

The cart’s appeal and draw has been the quality of its food, spread mostly by word of mouth and blogs like this.

As we were looking at the menu painted on the frontside of the cart, we overheard a desi specifying ‘spicy’ to his order. Seeing some goras (who usually play safe and order their Indian food ‘mild’) standing nearby, we too added the spicy suffix to our order.

We were famished and ordered Vegetable Biryani, Chicken Biryani and Vegetable Kati Roll.

But the cart was already out of Chicken Biryani!

Schade.

So in place of the Chicken Biryani we settled for Chicken Tikka, another favorite at the cart.

After placing the order, we patiently waited and dutifully ogled at the gora girls passing by in their tight T-shirts and tighter jeans. ;)

Behind and around us, we heard desis speaking Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and English.

To yours truly, the desis around us looked like the H1B/L1 IT coolies working in Midtown.

It took about 5-6 minutes to get our Styrofoam food boxes plus napkins and forks. Continue reading »

Share
 Posted by SearchIndia.com at 10:33 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Saifeena’s Shame – Kurbaan 2nd-wk Worse than Drona

 Bollywood, Box Office  4 Responses »
Nov 302009
 
Share

Can it possibly get any worse?

No, No and No.

The Saif Ali Khan-Kareena Kapoor piece of shit Kurbaan has fared worse than one of the worst movies in the annals of Bollywood. Y’all know which one. ;)

Yes, Yes and Yes
Kurbaan has accomplished the seemingly impossible. It has fared worse than Abhishek Bachchan’s Drona in the second week at the U.S. box office.

If we’ve said it once we’ve said it a gazillion times.

Kareena Kapoor is offal as far as acting goes and the kiss of death for movie-lovers.

The offputting Kareena ranks among the baddest of the bad Indian actresses.

In Kurbaan, both Kareena and her beau Saif Ali Khan have taken the paying audience for a ride.

And Bollywood fans have repaid the duo in kind with the pitiful box office numbers providing the best evidence of the comeuppance for the two stars.

What a Shame
In its second weekend at the U.S. box office, Kurbaan grossed $130,885, a 68% drop from the already low opening weekend.

Au contraire, Abhishek Bachchan’s Drona did $147,625 in its second weekend here.

Here’s how Kurbaan fared in its second weekend at the U.S. box office compared to a few other prominent Bollywood movies:

Related Stories:
Kurbaan Review – You are the Sacrificial Lamb, Sucker

Share
 Posted by SearchIndia.com at 8:28 pm

Critics Show Middle Finger to Arya 2

 Telugu Movies  5 Responses »
Nov 302009
 
Share

Allu Arjun’s latest crap show Arya 2 has received unflattering reviews from movie critics.

Here’s a sample of reviews for Arya 2:

* Sify:

Arya 2 is not really a sequel to that trendsetter, Arya. Neither is the movie entertaining like the original nor does it have any interesting moments. In fact, it is big disappointment. Illogical plotline, silly scenes and confusing second half makes the film a tedious watch.

….The basic problem is its unnatural script, where the hero’s characterization is marred by negative shades. As a matter of fact, those who would reach the theatres with expectation that Arya-2 is really a sequel to the blockbuster Arya, they would sure find themselves in a soup. On the whole, director Sukumar fails both as a writer and director as his plotline is confusing.

Rediff :

Arya 2 was being much talked of as the sequel to Arya, the successful Telugu film by Sukumar starring Allu Arjun a few years back.

Well, the sequel has the same hero-director combo but the magic is missing somehow. Continue reading »

Share
 Posted by SearchIndia.com at 1:18 am

Kandukondein Kandukondein Review – Nice Gambol in Cupid’s Vineyard

 Tamil Movies  13 Responses »
Nov 292009
 
Share

Hear, hear.

Here’s our take on the dramatis personae of Kandukondein Kandukondein.

* Aishwarya Rai is mostly graceless.

* Ajith is generally passionless.

* Abbas is absolutely expressionless.

* Tabu, our inamorata, is divinely peerless. ;)

* Mamooty is typically matchless.

Despite the reckless and habitual vandalism of the Ash-Ajith-Abbas troika on the movie sets, we’d still consider Kandukondein Kandukondein a decent film.

Kandukondein Kandukondein owes its charm primarily to its passable adaptation of Jane Austen’s early 19th century novel Sense and Sensibility (1811) and, to a lesser extent, to director Rajiv Menon’s deft hand at the tiller.

Say what you will, in a crass, class-less Tamil movie film industry this Menon fella shows some class and stands tall.

Movie buffs will recollect Rajiv Menon as the director of the Arvind Swamy-Kajol Mukerji hit Minsara Kanavu and the man behind the camera in Bombay.

Hewing largely to the story in the English novel, Kandukondein Kandukondein traces the fall into straitened circumstances of a widow and her three young daughters.

And follows the gambols in Cupid’s vineyard of the two older daughters as they move from the calm of their Poongudi village to the harsh environs of Chennai and navigate the harsh circumstances of city life and the hard ruts of their love lives. Continue reading »

Share
 Posted by SearchIndia.com at 8:28 pm

Arya 2 Review – A Back-Alley Abortion

 Telugu Movies  25 Responses »
Nov 272009
 
Share

Critics Show Middle Finger to Arya 2

A pack of rabid curs descend upon a poor, helpless woman in the last trimester of her pregnancy and drag her into a dark alley on a moonless night.

The frothing whackos then shove a rusted hanger up the victim’s twat.

Folks, the resulting ugly, bloody, horrific aborted mess on the floor is Arya 2.

The hapless woman in extremis is the paying audience and the pack of rabid whackos sure do answer to the roll-call of Allu Arjun, Kajal Agarwal, Navdeep, Sukumar et al.

Sheer Torture
If you thought Arya was awful, its successor Arya 2, unleashed by a confederacy of dunces, is an apocalyptic nightmare of biblical proportions.

Handicapped by a bizarrely asinine story, infested with a gaggle of buffoons and endowed with an entertainment quotient of Minus Infinity, Arya 2 plunges the knife into the guts of the unsuspecting audience, repeatedly twists the knife scooping up their entrails, one long, painful intestinal strand at a time.

And the central villain of this hideous monstrosity is none other than the anencephalic director Sukumar, the accursed architect of the original and misbegotten Arya too.

Besides committing the horrible, inexpatiable crime of misdirecting this movie, the fatuous clown also lays claims to penning this drivel of a story.

Ha ha ha, if the poppycock we witnessed on the screen is a story, then we are Krishnadevarayudu!

In its quintessence, Arya 2 is the too-lengthy account of a devoted friend Arya (Allu Arjun), who’d do anything, yes anything, to help his rich friend Ajay (Navdeep).

No sacrifice (a refrain throughout the movie) is too big for Arya if it’ll bring a smile on his undeserving friend’s face. A trait he’s held on to from their days together in an orphanage many summers ago.

Deja Vu
Yes, schmucks for once y’all guessed right.

Arya 2 is Arya redux. Continue reading »

Share
 Posted by SearchIndia.com at 7:20 am

De Dana Dan is Trash, Say Movie Critics

 Bollywood  9 Responses »
Nov 272009
 
Share

Movie critics in the U.S. and India have found Bollywood trash king Akshay Kumar’s new movie De Dana Dan a piece of trash.

Here’s what a sample of critics had to say on De Dana Dan:

* IBNLive:

At two hours and 40 minutes, it’s a laboriously long, patience-testing exercise in idiocy about some 20-odd characters stuck in a five-star hotel where mistaken identities and misunderstandings result in loud arguments, comic-book action and crude humor.

….carry ear plugs with you, or a Saridon. Or both. A migraine is guaranteed.

* Reuters:

This is entertainment at its lowest level.

* NDTV:

The film gets more tedious as the plot gets more convoluted and by the climax, in which everyone floats around as the hotel gets flooded, I could barely keep my eyes open.

The humour is so labored that I felt like someone was beating me to laugh.

And I finally understood why the credits in many Priyadarshan films say filmed by Priyadarshan instead of directed by Priyadarshan. Because there is little sense that someone is actually directing this circus.

* Rediff:

[A] loud, overlong collection of slapstick subplots that would have nothing in common but for one man.

Priyadarshan, refusing as always to call himself a director — ‘filmed by,’ proclaim his credits — attempts to stitch together this ragtag quilt in his usual style, ending up with a stupidly elaborate monstrosity.

….the film has been a damp squib right from the get go. The flaccid first half never quite recovers….it’s too cruelly long to really help things. Continue reading »

Share
 Posted by SearchIndia.com at 3:27 am
 Older Entries
© 2012 SearchIndia.com   Privacy Policy Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha