ZEN - Official Review

Zen Restaurant merits its status as the finest Thai/ Chinese restaurant in Dubai. From its extraordinary and authentic taste to a cozy and spacious ambiance it takes a foodie to the next level of gluttony while being inexpensive. Beautifully lit, this on the water restaurant, with a stellar view of the high rise including the Burj can be the perfect place for a date or be the place to take your entire family including those distantly related pile - ons for a meal to get into their good books.

The carte du jour ranges further than the customary Thai eatery, and it also offers a carefully crafted Indian and Chinese menu presenting sumptuous, aromatic chow flavors. If you love food and Thai food in particular, then you need to look no further. With the numerous awards it has already won at various food festivals you owe yourself a meal at this restaurant.

The restaurant does not serve the same style food to its customers, but each dish is carefully prepared keeping in mind your tastes, preferences and food fetishes. The menu is extensive, exhaustive and the names are Thai, Chinese and Indian sounding but there is Nicky to the rescue who will simplify it for you and whip up your favorite meat, fish or vegetable with your choice of color curry and all dishes are cooked to order.

The Zeus of Thai food and the Adonis of Romantic places this one has my vote for being the best restaurant I have visited food wise and ambiance wise.

STOMACH THOSE EMOTIONS

Emotions probably originate in the stomach and not the heart and definitely not the brain.

- When you are nervous and anxious you feel butterflies in your stomach and not anywhere else.

- When you are feeling pain, grief or shocked you feel something in the pit of your stomach.

- When you feel betrayed there is a feeling as thought someone kicked you in the stomach.

Well yes I have made my point that the stomach is supreme [if you have seen mine in recent times you will know for sure] but this piece is not about the stomach. It’s about emotions and actions.

Why does it happen that every time you are selfless that you come across as selfish? Why does it happen that when you have to do something good for someone you have to be the bad person? Why can’t people see through your actions and know you are doing it for them?

Well it’s simple, when people don’t get what they want they feel angry, betrayed or sad. But we have to realize that people most often do not know what they want. Or they think they know what they want, but it is what they want ‘now’ and not really what they want to carry forward into the future.

Let’s take an example. Growing up was fun for my brother and me because we had an elder sister who took care of us. She was our role model. I remember being 6 years old and thinking wow, she is so tall and smart and just wow. I remember the night family prayer ended with a request every single day – “Jesus, when we grow up please make us as tall as Tina [my sister].” As always my prayers were not answered because today I stand at a mere 5’8 while my sister is a towering 5’0. Thank God for small mercies.

Yes, many a time people cannot see beyond now and what they feel now, what they want now, their life now and it all happens in now. But you cannot always give in to people’s now. Maybe sometimes but not always. And knowing when to be ready to get that feeling that someone kicked you in the stomach is knowing that you love the person so much that you are willing to be hated just to do what’s right and not right now.

Right now my stomach hurts but its nothing a little mint choco chip cannot help soothe now because perhaps in the future people will grow out of now and see that it was the love for them that made my stomach swell.

Relationships – The Uncommon Man

Choices. Reactions. It’s the stuff that life is made of. Come to think of it what is life but the choices we make and our reactions to the experiences and incidents that happen to us?

I have always been a propagator of this agenda but somehow it’s pretty hard to follow 100%. There are times when I slip up and forget to be calm, react objectively and I lose the plot at times. I do my best to recover, and most often I do as well but the pain of having been ‘common’ lingers. After all who wants to be the common man?

Common reactions lead to poor relationships. Our brain is probably wired for us to react poorly to conflict and painful situations. We need to overcome that initial urge to react and be very logical in our thought to have an uncommon reaction. This uncommon or common reaction is what we call attitude. So you may have noticed that whenever we're in conflict with someone, and we want to do something to hurt the other person because we are hurting, there is still one factor that separates damaging your relationship or deepening it. It’s called attitude.

The next time you boss cheats you out of credit for a project, your friends drift away from you for whatever reasons, the delivery boy delays your meal by half an hour keeping you famished, the neighbors play the vuvuzela late at night while cheering their team at the world cup on TV, your wife nags, your children behave wild, parents are breathing down your neck, crazy drivers on the road, – remember you have a choice in the way you can react.

Journey from the Common Man to Come’on Man

Be UNCOMMON

Avatar remade in Bollywood

Avatar being made in Hindi but this time its an underwater theme. Casting for the title character has being done.

Auditions for the remaining roles are being held as you read this.

Marathi Manoos