We had been to Lake Tahoe for the Thanksgiving weekend. Surprisingly, it was sunny and bright there in Lake Tahoe. Had a relaxing and fun time there. Came back home to a gloomy weather yesterday and went to work today in the gloomy weather. What better way to spruce up a gloomy weather than a hearty wonderful dinner. So raided the pantry and finally found a bag of Avees Puncha Idiyappam podi and some cans of light coconut milk. Have never made idiyappam in life. Searched internet for recipes and gave up since all of the recipes were for white rice flour, not the red rice puncha idiyappam. Decided to give it a try on my own. Didn’t have high hopes. But guess how it turned out! Awesome! Look for yourself.

Idiyappam (6-8 servings  of 4-6 idiyappams each)

1. Avees Puncha Idiyappam podi (Red rice flour) – 2 cups
2. Boiling water – 2 cups
3. Oil – 2 tbsp
4. Salt to taste

Mix the salt, Idiyappam podi, add water little by little. Mix it without any lumps and keep it aside closed for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, add the oil and knead it well without any lumps. Then using a idiyappam press or thenkuzhal choppu/Nazhi, press them into idly mould and steam them for 10 minutes.  Wonderful idiyappam is ready.

Kadalai curry(4 servings)

1. Diced Onions 1/2 cup
2. Boiled garbanzo bean(channa) 1 1/2 cup
3. Grated garlic/ginger 1 tsp
4. Red chilli powder 1 tsp
5. Oil 1 tsp
6. Salt to taste
7. Madras curry masala powder/garam masala 1 tsp
8. Tomato 1, chopped
9. Light coconut milk 1 cup
10. Cilantro leaves, 1 tbsp chopped

Heat oil, add ginger/garlic, then add onion, saute for 2 mins, add tomato and salt, saute for 10 mins, then add the curry masala powder, after 5 mins, add the garbanzo bean and 1 cup of water. Let it boil for 15 mins. Add the coconut milk, switch off once it is about to boil. Add  powder, saute for five minutes, add salt and keep it aside. Garnish with cilantro leaves.

Serve it with hot idiyappam.

First it was Otha sollala, now this! I so don’t want to admit that I liked both the songs and Dhanush’s acting/expressions!!

Boo has been asking me to watch this movie for a long time now. Since this is a movie with no popular actors and since utbt has R2I-ed, couldn’t get hold of DVD here. Finally saw the promos for it in Vijay TV and looked forward to watching it. To make things complicated, it was screened on the day of time change and the recording got screwed up. Since Vijay TV repeats the program twice, thankfully was able to record it the second time. Well, the movie was well worth the trouble. Thanks Boo for the recommendation!
Pros:

• The cast. Don’t know any one of them, but they were all good. The hero’s entire  family was so natural and believable.
• Very simple story, tight screenplay. I don’t know how to describe it, but the movie was pretty good.
• Music was pretty good too and apt for the movie.

Cons:

• None really. If I had to pick one, the movie would have been much better if they have picked a more Madurai looking girl instead of Ramya Nambeesan. Also the ending could have been more creative.

The movie was very entertaining. Overall, the movie was a fun and brilliant.

• The cast. Shruthi, Suriya, Johnny tri Nguyen, all three looking good and acted well.
• Bodhi dharma’s back story. Wish it was the entire movie. It would have been fresh and very entertaining. (Felt the same way in Dasavatharam as well. It is time for a good historic movie in Tamil. Anyone hearing me. If so, please remember it should be good.)
• Didn’t screw up big time in an attempt to dumb down the movie for the audience
• Visuals
• Not dwelling much into Suriya/Shruthi romance
• Strong role for the leading lady instead of typical “damsel in distress” heroine. Shruthi has played this part very well.
• It was creative of AR Murugadoss to pick the story of Bodhidharma. At least I didn’t know about Bodhidharma until I saw this movie, although an article about Bodhidharma came in Junior vikatan in the 80s.

Cons:

• Songs! Totally out of place and not impressive. “Ennum enna thozha” didn’t have the umph like “Jana gana mana” from Yuva. Probably the songs might work as a separate album, but not in this movie
• Background score was not impressive, it was distracting in many places especially in the climax fight sequence
• Too much reliance on Hypnotism and less martial arts
• Unnecessary display of  Surya’s  body. Kind of starts reminding one of Salman Khan
• Climax was dragging. Since we all know that Suriya is going to win, why drag it out.
• Gets too preachy at times. I mean, if the directed has depicted Bodhidharma as a Telegu prince in 7th sense, what does it do the credibility of the director!! So why bring the tamil pride and get all preachy when you are ready to misrepresent historic details in order to make money

Overall, the movie can is worth watching one time.

Hiking trip

Also took a walk in the woods with the Ashu and Boo. It was a beautiful morning.

Walk in the woods

Cons:
Too long
Mediocre to bad supporting cast. (Premji, Magath, Vaibhav to say the least)
The background score and songs weren’t impressive
They could have cast some one other than Premji for the geek character. Couldn’t imagine a character like Premji hacking into highly secured systems
Lot of scenes remind one of the many Hollywood movies that we have all seen. (Onna renda eduthu solla.)
The women in the movie other than Lakshmi Rai are fully wasted

Overall, the movie can be watched one time. Decent entertainer. For me this is the thrid Ajith movie in theatre. The first one was Vaali, which was pretty decent. The second one was Citizen. (I still have nightmares about that, so let us move on), the third is Mangatha, which is a decent movie.

By the way, the censor board, apart from bleeping out the profanities, also blurred some of the bloody scenes and some of the hips and bellybuttons. I have a question(Enakku oru unmai therinjaganum), when they freely show the bikini clad women prancing around, why are they blurring the hip that peeks out of a saree. Strange people I say!! Did this happen in all theatres or were we in a special theatre?