Restaurant Review: Egg Factory

Did you know that a restaurant exists in Bangalore where every preparation in the menu has egg!! Reviews indicated that it is a good place for a quick meal which was perfect because it was a busy day at work for my wife and we didn't have time for a long meal.

Egg Factory is located right behind Dewar Wines on St Marks road (opposite SBI). One can see the board from St Marks road itself. Parking, as usual, is a nightmare in that area so it is good to keep that into account.

It is a small restaurant with 10 to 12 tables and furnished in a spartan manner. Menu was very interesting. It was like a multilingual manual that comes with electronic products, a big page folded several times into manageable size and has contents in four different language. Very cool!

We ordered ice teas for us and found them to be not as lemony as we liked. Requested them to get some extra lime for us and that did the trick.

There are subs, omelettes, frittatas, pastas with cooked eggs in sauce, egg curry with rice ... the list is pretty long!! We ordered a frittata with zucchini and cilantro sauce and a penne pasta with desi sauce (tailored for indian palate i.e. spicy). Pasta sauce had cooked egg pieces in it. Both the entrees were served with a big slice of garlic bread. Advantages of small restaurant is that food comes piping hot on your table and sometimes that makes a lot of difference. We really enjoyed the food although frittata could be a bit thicker with chunkier vegetables in it.

For dessert, we had a variation of french toast stuffed with raisins and served hot with orange sauce on a sizzler plate. It was very nice (and very filling too).

Music is un-intrusive and service is prompt. Prices are very reasonable. We liked the place and will go again for a quick lunch. Thinking about it again, it would be a perfect place for a Sunday brunch!

All in all, thumbs up for egg factory.

Lore surrounding Solar Eclipse

Today there was solar eclipse. It was partially visible in India although not in Bangalore I guess. My Mom told us to not venture out today and not to eat during this period. While I don't believe in this superstition, that got me thinking. I am sure Indians are not the only ones with superstitions around celestial events. All ancient civilizations must have them as well. A bit of quality time with Google and we have lots of interesting stuff.

Early humans thought of eclipses as evil omens, possible signs of catastrophic events. Earliest recorded eclipse was in China, in 2134 BC. Two court astrologers to the emperor were beheaded because they couldn't predict it.

Thales of Miletus, first known philosopher, scientiest and mathematician, was apparently the first one to predict the solar eclipse (Lunar eclipses are much easier to predict) although there are debates about that and some believe that even he had predicted the first one correctly, he probably wouldn't have been able to predict the latter ones.

Coming back to the lore surrounding eclipses. Hindus in ancient India believed that Solar and Lunar eclipses happen because Rahu (one of the daemons) gobbles up Sun and Moon and they need to free themselves up. People of ancient China believed that a giant dragon was devouring the sun. Some of the egyptians sects believed that a big serpent is eating the sun god.

So, what do people do during eclipses. In India, many Hindus still believe in shutting themselves in the house, not eat anything during the eclipse, take bath in holy river (and if you are not close to one, shower at home would do) and pray. Muslims traditions hold that Prophet Mohammed prayed during the entire duration of eclipse so prayers are held during eclipse.

Even though the reasoning behind the lore isn't correct, the practice of keeping people in places where they can't see sun is beneficial anyway because looking at sun directly is a bad idea anyway however while the concept was relevant then because people used to work in fields those days, it isn't valid anymore. Wait a second ... with a large chunk of a billion Indians associated with agriculture, its probably still relevant in Indian villages.

Credits

• The pic in the post is from NASA, and BTW, it is not of today's eclipse.
• A lot of info above is from this preso.
• Information on Thales from Miletus.
• Hindu blog
  

Lets get rolling

This blog exists to satisfy my inherent need to give fundas to anyone and everyone. I am not choosy when it comes to subject and can and will talk about anything and everything in this blog. Every blog is started with the intention of continuity but only time will tell the fate of this one.