@dhanashree’s
truth opinions variety movies fun substance people food ideas life !!Archive for December, 2008
maxan’s
after a really loooong time, we took off for a relaxed drive cutting through the lively city lighting and attention grabbing neon signs on the eastern express highway from thane towards mulund. this patch is specialised by spaced out eateries like mantra, royal challenge, and a couple of malls. after having attended a friend’s mehendi ceremony, we were kind of full with mithai n snacks n sherbet. but there was apetite for little more.
since there was a meeting with the interior guy again late night, we had an hour to go..
so we found ourselves at maxan’s – at the food court of eternity mall. this is a ‘fine dining’ restaurant as they call themselves.one section is the formal setting – probably that’s where you get the mexican menu as he name of the place suggests. we went to the dhaba part – and… it was a soothing surprise!!
the ambience was very dhaba-ish with low indian sitting and furniture made to look like its straight out of a village home. the old world décor types. walls, structure painted to go with the rustic look. lighting out of cane lamps.
the best part that created all the difference – the live ghazal show and the enchanting tabla.. n they were taking ‘farmaish’ too.. (my personal favourite is hazaaron khwahishen aisi)
we gorged a lot on starters. they have mughlai,punjabi, kashmiri, malvani. and they were tasty too.. helpings were enough for one person one starter, or maybe we were too hungry. anand’s sixth sense that chicken here should be tasted went of well .. looked like.. in the end, we needed fresh lime soda to help digest it all!
my rating : must visit, for all three – food,ambience, music.
learnings shared
project home decor.tiring but interesting weekend.
continuing from the last post in this section, kitchen colours are finally selected. the int guy, anand n me. saturday morning. we walked in to a fairly big shop, with quite some trendy variety. i generally tend to look at whites n off-whites, apple shade or cream and i was… but the contrast to go with it was boring. oranges, deep blues, red etc which look good but are very common these days. each of us were quietly pushing through door sized panels of mixed n matched laminates put on sliders… u just have to keep pushing them apart, to expose ones in the next row behind and so on.. they had books too..
finally we chanced upon a fresh white n grass green combination… and liked it instantly… then there were some ideas like how to use the two… what would be the appropriate lighting in the room to go with it.. choice was our both. the int guy gave some good ideas around it. we have kind of built a good rapport now.
back home, wood work happened in two stages –
the first stage was – noisy stage, as you can only hear hammer n nail sounds n at the end of the day all u see is wooden planks small n big…with some internal lining laminate.
the second stage – the visibility, i call it. when the cabinets are up on the wall and u can see things taking shape, and maybe suggest changes here as finally what you get to see always makes a difference even if you have planned everything inch by inch.
third stage is where the above selected combo shall be stuck on the cabinets.
fourth would be the wall paint.
tip to planners : 1. at this stage you might keep on getting more n more ideas as you see things looking better… but keep an eye on the changing budget too.
2. be open to new ideas, being too stubborn on a particular colour you have seen work well somewhere else etc. might not be the the only best thing in the world.
3. if u can catch hold of an interior designer who is flexible n understands just your needs, it’s always a good idea; a person who is in this profession can always give new n trendy ideas and warn you about things that might get wrong from usability point of view.
..and above all enjoy the process, as much as you will the result!
