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We have developed a robust appetite for Korean films and, by God, we’re gorging on them.

The other day, in a first, we watched an entire Korean movie on the iPad, streaming it off Netflix.

Since it was late night, we used our iPhone headset.

The overall picture quality via WiFi streaming was divine on the iPad 2. Not a single hiccup.

For the life of us, we can’t imagine streaming and enjoying a full-length movie on any of the chutiya Android tablets like Kindle Fire or Samsung Galaxy.

The Korean movie we streamed was a gangster film Righteous Ties (2006).

Directed by Jang Jin, the film has Jeong Jae-yeong playing Chi-sung, a mobster’s Right-Hand Man. We suppose, in Hollywood they’d call such people the Capo or capo bastone.

Jeong Jae-yeong is not new to us or the SI blog habitues.

We watched Jeong recently in the 2007 film Going by the Book where he played the straight-arrow cop Jeong Do-man. By the way, Going by the Book is also directed by Jang Jin.

Jung Jun-ho plays Chi-sung’s close friend Joo-joong, also a member of the same mob group.

Korean Movie - Righteous TiesRighteous Ties Theater Poster
(Source: Wiki)

A Revenge Tale

The central theme of Righteous Ties is revenge. Continue reading »

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After spending a lifetime gorging on the infinite varieties of Indian curries, we’ve now started exploring what’s on the other side of the curry fence.

In pursuit of the elixir outside of Indian food, we’ve lately started gormandizing on Thai food.

A variety of Thai dishes including Pad Thai, Drunken Noodles, Panang Red Curry, Kiew Warn, Thai Pineapple Curry, Spicy Tofu and Hot Green Curry have found their way into that cavernous black-hole aka SI’s stomach.

But nothing, nothing from the cornucopia of Thai cuisine that we’ve indulged in so far comes anywhere near Gaeng Kua Sapparod or Thai Pineapple Curry to those unfamiliar with the titillating names of Thai food.

Allah or Jesus or Ram must have been in a most beneficent mood when he  parted with the recipe for Thai Pineapple Curry to Earthlings.

Thai Pineapple CurryThai Pineapple Curry – Manna from Heaven

Like with most great things, the origins of Thai Pineapple Curry are shrouded in a fog of mystery although we’ve heard rumors that one  of our peripatetic South Indian ancestors may have played a part in its creation during his wanderings in Siam at the end of the 19th century to bring civilization to the natives. ;)

A Different Curry

All curries are not created equal.

With their overpowering aroma and fiery taste, Indian curries are like, well, Indians.

In other words, hot, crude, occasionally deceptive and often herald their existence even before they touch your palate.

Once the Indian curry hits your palate, the shout gets magnified with the fiery explosion in your mouth.

Thai food, at least the bastardized American version of the various dishes we’ve tried over the last few months, does not need to scream to make its presence felt.

Still much of the Thai food we’ve tried has met with our approval.

But it’s the Thai Pineapple Curry that swept us off our feet and won our heart.

Thai Pineapple Curry is a coconut-milk and red curry paste based dish.

You can have the Thai Pineapple Curry with Chicken, Duck or with vegetables. So far we have had it only with vegetables.

It’s sweet and spicy at the same time.

Unless you’re a schmuck you know the pineapple gives it the sweet-sour touch and the red curry paste renders the spicy flavor or heat.

The gravy or sauce or whatever you chose to call it, in which the vegetables and small pineapple chunks come soaked, is neither watery like soup nor thick like the gravy of Chicken Tikka Masala or Butter Chicken. It’s somewhere in between.

Besides the pineapple chunks, the vegetable version of Thai Pineapple Curry includes Cauliflower, Snow peas, Cut Beans, Broccoli, ridged Carrot pieces, Zucchini slices, Baby Corn, slices of Cauliflower stalk, Tomato and Red Pepper

The dish usually comes with rice on the side.

You can pour the Thai Pineapple Curry on the rice or like we do, add a little bit of rice at a time into the curry and scoop it up with a  spoon into your mouth. Either way, you come out on top!

If you’re looking for a desi vegetarian recipe for the Thai Pineapple Curry, you might want to visit Jugalbandi.

As we make the rounds of Thai restaurants we can’t help but notice that service at Thai restaurants is friendlier than at Indian restaurants.

Sporting a mournful mien, waiters in Indian restaurants invariably walk and act as if they have a monster dildo shoved up their backside.

Au contraire, Thais are usually bubbling with their smiles and How are youuus?

Whether the Thai enthusiasm is feigned or genuine, it does make you, the diner, feel good.

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What do Indian newspapers like Times of India, Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, Business Standard, Economic Times, India West, Udayavani, IBNLive, NDTV and Network18 (last three are TV channels) have in common.

Over the last few months, all these media publications have put out iPad versions of their content.

We love our iPad and are addicted to it.

From reading books to checking movie showtimes to playing chess to catching up on the news to watching movies to making Skype video calls and more, we rely on our iPad 2.

The addition of Indian content makes the iPad even more dear to us.

Indian Express iPad Version

Wild Success in U.S.

In the U.S., the iPad has been a wildly successful product.

Most consumers who have purchased it love it and those who have not yearn for it.

The iPad has crushed Samsung, RIM/Blackberry, Asus, Acer and almost every other tablet in the U.S. (except the newly launched $199 Kindle Fire).

But based on what we hear from visiting friends, the iPad still has not taken deep roots in India.

Not surprising, given its high price tag (the entry-level 16GB version of the iPad 2 starts at $499).

Further, unlike a movie or software app the thieving Indian bastards cannot pirate an iPad. ;)

So presumably those Indian publications that have put out iPad versions are targeting NRIs like us or just riding the latest technology fad.

Whatever be the motivation, we’re happy.

By the way, the major iPad holdout is the Chennai newspaper The Hindu.

A stodgy publication that’s said to be losing ground to Times of India even in its Chennai bastion, the Hindu seems to be behind the curve when it comes to the web or iPad. Maybe if Hindu Editor N.Ram can tear himself away from his intense love affair with Wikileaks founder Assange he’ll find time to put out an iPad app. ;)

Times of India - iPad

Shame, All Free

One of the distressing aspects of every Indian newspaper on the iPad is that they’re all free.

And that’s a shame, a mighty shame.

Because good content costs money to produce.

To give away for free stuff that takes a lot of time and costs mucho money to put together is nonsense.

The hoi polloi don’t understand that or plain refuse to take note of that fact in their unrestrained clamor for free.

Of all the cheapskates in the world, Indians must be the cheapest. These mothafuckas want everything free.

If it’s not free, they steal with impunity.

But if Indian newspapers not only continue to give their content for free on the web but also put free iPad and iPhone versions as well then soon they’ll find themselves in the same perilous situation as American newspapers.

A lot of American newspapers are hemorrhaging badly because the number of people who buy them at newsstands or subscribe to them has fallen steeply since they’re all available free on the Internet.

The obsession with getting content free on the web has grown to the extent that we’ve lately read even American writers boasting of getting all their news content for free.

Obviously, stupidity and greed cuts across borders.

Two of the leading newspapers in the U.S., The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, charge for their iPad versions.

Hopefully, more American and Indian publications will follow their lead.

Suggestion for Indian Media Firms

Indian newspapers must form some kind of a collective to monetize the content they spend a lot of time and money creating.

Continue reading »

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(** Attn U.S. Readers: The Yellow Sea is currently playing at select theaters in NYC, NJ, Skokie (IL), Cupertino (CA) and Los Angeles)

*******************************
Yellow Sea Cast & Crew
Director – Na Hong-jin
Story/Screenplay – Na Hong-jin
Actors – Jung-woo Ha, Yun-seok Kim
*******************************

Given our insatiable lust for Korean crime films, it was preordained that we would watch The Yellow Sea when it hit theaters in the U.S.

Much to our chagrin, the movie took a long time coming to Amreeka but finally it debuted last Friday in select theaters across the U.S. Braving the thick Mid-Atlantic fog, we hotfooted over to see the movie this morning.

When The Yellow Sea was screened at the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in May it won loud applause from many admirers.

By now, movie buffs who can move a mouse and with an abiding interest in quality films (the un-Bollywood stuff) are aware that Yellow Sea moves at a ferociously bloody pace with a furious velocity that lunges at you and holds you in its thrall, keeping you at the edge of your seat for the duration of the film.

For Korean film aficionados like yours truly, the cast and crew of Yellow Sea are familiar names.

Director Na Hong-jin, whose explosive debut in 2008 with Chaser established his reputation with moviegoers, gets together once again with the two lead actors from his first film, Jung-woo Ha and Yun-seok Kim.

Na Hong-jin is also credited for Yellow Sea’s story and screenplay.

Yellow Sea starts off in the Yanbian region, an area at the intersection of China, Russia and North Korea, where 800,000 Korean-Chinese live, many of them making a living off illegal activities.

Cab driver Gu-nam (Ha Jung-woo) is overwhelmed by the debt incurred in his wife’s passage to South Korea to find employment there. Gu-nam’s crushing debt of 60,000 yuan gets worse with his gambling losses from Mahjong.

As his debt situation becomes alarming and the thugs keep pressing him, Gu-nam’s lenders push him to complete a dangerous assignment for a local criminal Myun (Yun-seok Kim) to settle the debt – Kill a person in South Korea and bring back his thumb as evidence of the job completed.

Initially reluctant, Gu-nam eventually agrees as he sees no other solution to his financial woes. Continue reading »

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You can’t sing to the flower without including the bud and stem and the root, even the mud around it, too.

- The mad woman Clare in The Wedding by Sallie Bingham, p.172,

Source: Mending – New and Selected Stories (Sarabande Books, 2011)

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There is no such thing as “Indian food.” It’s a fabrication of the West. Each state has its own regional cuisines: Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bengal. And then even the states have subcategories — there’s coastal Maharashtrian, inland Maharashtrian, Muslim-influenced. Sadly, what most of the world knows today as Indian food is bastardized, trivialized — tandoori chicken, black dal, everything deep-fried. And it’s just a shame that many Americans will only experience it in some buffet line in New Jersey.

- Famed Mumbai chef Rahul Akerkar in Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2011

Tandoori Chicken - A Staple at Indian Restaurants in the U.S.Tandoori Chicken – A Fixture at Most
Indian
Restaurants in U.S

Rahul Akerkar is right.

Most Indian restaurants in the U.S. are a disgrace serving food unfit for humans or animals.

Whether they’re run by South Indians or Punjabis, most Indian restaurants in the New Jersey-New York City region serve unpalatable inedible food.

And we say that with cockiness because we’ve dined at over 100 so-called Indian restaurants in NJ and NY.

Some of the worst offenders are Bhojan and Dhaba in NYC, Saravana Bhavan in West Windsor (NJ), Flavors of India in Columbia (MD) and Rangoli in Chantilly (VA).

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