The Concept of the Neighbourhood Store.

The Concept of the Neighbourhood Store.

This though may sound to the urban ear a concept restricted to old generation small towns wherein everyone shopped at a local convenience store , it cant be farther from the truth especially in a city like Mumbai (Somehow I have to consciously allow myself to type that when I would love to still type Bombay , I have some very vivid , colorful and strongly opinionated comments for the “re-naming” of places – wasteful exercise to say the least , anyway shall leave that to another write up some time later for now the key word rather the PET word is “Neighborhood” )

With the city bursting at its seams with the daily expanding population that our city planners (do they exist at all ?? or is it as crazy a term as an “alien”) seem to be turning a totally blind eye and a deaf ear to , the whole concept of sky walks , metro stations in the making (don’t smirk I am quite optimistic and see them turn into a reality at least by 2012) ,bridges to shrink the city all don’t really seem to be having the desired effect , add to that the increasing amount of effort any individual has to put in to go to a particular place to procure daily needs is quite stressful in itself .

At this juncture its safe to say that the concept of a small (defined as anywhere between 2500 – 6000 sq ft) store is a very welcome concept. The whole point here being availability within reach and the blessing of a free home delivery service.

Expand this concept and stretch this to a radius of about 25-30 kms and we have what I call the “Neighbor-hood Mini Malls” , If anyone has already coined another term and added to the massive mountain of marketing jargon that floats around , them please excuse me but for now for ease of my article flowing smoothly and the proverbial “writers block” finally lifting like a dark grey cloud which is not anymore running a potentially sunny spring day , I will continue use of the new self coined jargon - “Neighbor-hood Mini Malls”.
Well , now that the christening is done with lets see what they are all about , well of course the biggest crowd pullers are the supermarket and multiplex , but add to that a small and comfy bookstore , a food court , an ATM , few “no – label” stores and some “pseudo” middle class brand stores (This is again a whole concept in itself – not so much self created but understood by me in a way a lay man would & allows for another short and not garrulous but very informative “Information Bulletin” kinda write up – yes , yes those very articles that pretend to be well researched but are unfortunately quite the old copy-paste ,run –of-the-mill every man can come up with fare !! ) and there we are !Of course the location , the correct “side “ of the road and decent amount of parking space are surely an added bonus .
Considering that the city planners (There ! again I the optimistic hopeful successful only in my head writer am imagining a committee that actually functions to think and act –hopefully – for public good and not just exist on paper for monthly , quarterly bi-annual tea parties !) have put some amount of thought process on un-avoidable rise of residential property in far off suburbs which are trying desperately to connect to the main backbone of Mumbai city , the whole concept of the “Neighbor-hood Mini Malls”. Is quite tantalizing to say the least .The potential in real estate and the bigger advantage of the availability of brands coming within reach is an option much worth exploring for today’s savvy marketers.
There’s much that be inked on this concept and paras written basis town planning, real estate rates , study of existing “Neighbor-hood Mini Malls” which will follow in due course .

Trikaya - Eternal - illusion more than anything ....

Self Appointed Food critic!

Hubby , me and our favourite kaka , high expectations , dinner at the new hotspot ( so - called ) near home , time of arrival 8:40 pm , ambience great !Parking to restaurant - NO SIGNAGES , DIRECTIONS ....nothing , jus expected to crawl up so we ended up taking the service entrance ....yes ....

We ask to sit in the beautiful terrace area ,but another funny thing - they serve only small eats and drinks there - why ??? why cant they serve dinner ? no apparent reason , maybe they suspect the crowd to get drunk n wild - somehow reminded me of the million udipi place in Mumbai where "family area" is marked seperate - so we are seated in the main dinning area and offered a table at the central area - which i must say a very ugly huge vase alias urn with the most loud and hideous dried flowers almost touching the heads of the diners ! , I promptly refuse not wanting to be the cynsoure of all eyes , not that anyone really cares but with the absence of a live band in the centre the seating doesn't appeal to me at all , but hey we cant complain can we , cause we are hoping the food is great .

While the unnecessary vases placed in every possible space are horrendous to say the least they lack a common story of either colour size or extension of the otherwise eastern decor complete with a beautiful carved Buddha in the terrace , also why place live bamboo plants in the main dining area where they get no sunlight and also attract mosquitoes???

We are then seated next to a table taken by 2 drivers of a bunch of people ,not that it was a problem but after the meal am sure they wished they had eaten jhunka bhakar instead , atleast it wouldn't cost the sky and yet taste great!

well after going through the menu (though why print it on a wooden plank ...was totally lost on that one ...) the alcohols seem standard and ok while the mocktail menu was small and didn't really have much choice not to mention "sorry m'am we dont have the so and so " and yes when did sparkling bottled water become an aerated drink ??

Also strangely the menu has some interesting name like "steamed parcels " for dimsums - why? don't ask me !also "samosas " for a particular dessert !Hilarious!

to say that the serice is slow is an uderstatement and to say that the staff is ill - informed another , its quite a pity , why waste such great decor (only at the entrance foyer and terrace ,might i add) on a porrly done menu and food that doesn't live upto expectations , i alsmot wanted to run out and rewind the clock and wish I was at Mianland China instead or even at Thai Place at Aundh ....sighh.....great Thai food at even better prices and totally worth the money.

Well the "steamed parcels " were well ok the outer cover just fell off and was totally uncooked !

The sauce was stale and the lovely concept of chilli soy was lost in a nanosecond.....

grumble grumble ....

ok yes did I mention that by the time teh 2nd starter which incidentally was the only tasty thing this evening came a whole 20 minutes after the first starter was prawns wrapped in bacon and we were refused pork spare ribs as starters because ...let me guess...." we are not serving pork today !!!!"" hehhehehehe so bacon n pork come from 2 different animals!!!!

and when the plates finally came for the main course , I had all of them changed , guess why? well I had candle wax on mine , now thats a first and I hope the last ...it at times like this that i curse the non existence of a judicial system that works .........i could have sued them !

well the main course was ok and the so called spicy lamb was far from spicy .

but haven't told you the main hoax have I ? the "Bitter Chocolate Fondue " was well not bitter and tasted exactly like uncooked cooker cake mix of a popular brand ....yuck....

Oh and the cherry on the cake was the spelling error the bill and visiting card . so many blunders in one place ...hey also no coasters ....what an awfull experience ....help....never ever again!

oh yes i actually laughed reading the write up about Trikaya .... it said eternal like the concept ....why mis-lead your clients like that ?!