Changing Lanes

Situated in Garhoud, Shahista is perhaps the only Afghani restaurant I've seen that aims to serve the upscale crowd with an opulent décor and a pricy menu. Being yet another restaurant SJ had shot in; it was in our ‘Must try’ list.

Bill
1 Tabbouleh                : AED20
1 Loqma Kebab            : AED50
1 Zarishk Pallaw            : AED40
1 Orange Juice             : AED20
1 Steam Milk                : AED10
1 Ice cream scoop        : AED20
                              --------------------
Total                            AED160

Disclaimer: This blog is not turning into a food blog cause if it was, I'd blog about every new thing I ate. I'm just blogging about food I've enjoyed eating outside and would recommend to others.

Bill

1 Lebanese Style Eggs (w/o potatoes)     : AED33
1 Spanish Omelette (w/o potatoes)         : AED29
1 Belgian Waffle with Maple syrup            : AED16
1 Red Fruit Tea                                     : AED12.50
1 Hot Chocolate (Double)                       : AED 17
                                                        --------------------
Total                                                   AED 107.50


With a frame of mind of having some sandwiches for breakfast, me and SJ entered Dubai Mall. We ended up having some eggs.

Being the lazy combo we've been lately, we decided to try PQ aka 'Le Pain Quotiden' as it was right next to the parking entrance to where our cars were parked. The restaurants decent decor helped sway our decision to eat there.

SJ ordered the Red Fruit Tea (pictured above) and the Spanish Omelette (pictured left). The tea was nothing special in my opinion even though SJ gulped it all exclaiming that it felt like drinking blood (not because of the taste but the colour obviously). The Omelette was ridiculously luscious with a divine mixture of olives, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and capsicum. Even though SJ claims to have the ability to make a better version of it, I doubt she could have bettered this.

I ordered Hot chocolate and the Lebanese style eggs (pictured right). The hot chocolate was simple and nice, just the way I like it. The eggs on the other hand was nothing as I expected ( I should have read the description carefully). Curiosity was the reason behind my order and honestly I was a little disappointed even though there was nothing wrong with the taste. The mint leaves was a nice touch but those beef sausages (tiny ones) were too salty and tasted a little odd.

To top off the meal with some dessert, we ordered the Belgian waffle with maple syrup as recommended by SN on twitter. The maple syrup was a little extra sweet and the waffle could have been crispier but when put together, it was just perfect. If we had any space in our tummy, we'd have ordered more but we couldn't so we plan to go back for more.

Chris Melandandri, the executive producer who bought us Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Horton hears a Who, brings us a new animated movie in the form of Despicable Me. I hadn't heard of this movie until I saw the trailer when I'd gone to watch Toy Story 3 (Review here). It looked interesting but didn't tickle my curiosity enough to make me want to go to the theater to watch it. Then on one lazy Friday night, me and my siblings decided to go watch a movie and Despicable Me was the only one that fit the bill as my 4 year old niece was to accompany us. A late night show, the theater was full of easily tickled idiots which meant it wasn't the best environment to watch an average movie.

Stealing the moon, the greatest heist ever destined to make Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), with the help an aging scientist Dr. Nefario (voiced by Russel Brand), and an army of minions (voiced by directors Peiere Coffin and Chris Reneud, and Jermain Clement), the world's greatest villain. But before all of that, he needs a loan from the 'Bank of Evil' (formerly known as Lehman Brothers) run by Mr. Perkins(voiced by Will Arnett) who happens to be Vector's (voiced by Jason Segel) father, the new villain on the block and Gru's arch nemesis who had stolen the Great Pyramid of Giza to become the world's current greatest villain. In order to achieve his goal, Gru adopts three orphans, Margo (voiced by Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (voiced by Elsie Fisher) who after an initial edgy period falls in love with them. I won't go more in detail and spoil the fun for the readers so that's enough of a spoiler.

The story was humdrum in most places which is generally the case with animated movies but the problem with Despicable Me is the lack of any stand out characters. Apart from Gru, the minions and Agnes, the rest of the characters were a little *done to death*. Some of the human gags fell flat while the emotional moments were cute in patches (basically Agnes was the only one who shined). The minions were by far the best element/s of the movie which made it an almost above average movie. Their almost gibberish talk, funny antics and innocence was refreshing.

Possibly a movie I wouldn't have preferred watching in the theater but I wouldn't call it a waste of money either. It was a feel good movie that doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth later (if that makes any sense).

As a kid, I remember playing the original Prince of Persia game in the early 90’s. I never got around playing the other versions because by the time the new ones were released, I had stopped playing games due to having a poorly built computer.

When I saw the movie trailer for the first time, I thought the lead actor Jake Gyllenhaal (who plays Prince Dastan) looked gay. I don’t know how the character had developed over the years in the game but this is not how I wanted the character to look like and I decided I didn’t want to watch the movie anymore. But then I got passes to the press screening and I couldn’t say no to this opportunity. Went there with minimal expectations and in all honestly, I enjoyed it in parts.

The story revolves around Prince Dastan who was adopted as a kid from the streets by King Sharaman (played by Ronald Pickup) of Persia and Princess Tamina (played by Gemma Arterton) of the Holy City of Alamut, who are trying to keep an ancient dagger away from the dark side who might abuse its capabilities of releasing the Sands of Time which basically means you can reverse time and allow its possessor to alter the past as per his/her wish.

Jake Gyllenhaal surprised me. I loved the parkour based action scenes that were executed to perfection and his acting overall was quite impressive for a game based action hero. Gemma Arterton in simple words was not as beautiful as she was made to be and her acting was dismal in places. The chemistry between them was about average while the short romantic scenes between them where they almost kissed were pointless and slowed the pace of the movie.

The dark side is the evil uncle (how cliché) Nizam (played by Ben Kingsley) and the Hassansins. Ben Kingsley looked out of place and he was a shadow of the villain he could have been as I felt his character was poorly written giving him very little to work with. The Hassansins lead by their snake charmer pale looking leader (played by Gísli Örn Garðarsson) looked promising but a few of their scenes looked like a cheap rip-off of the Nazgul scenes from The Lord of the Rings which was kind of annoying. The Hassasins could have been given a better role but they just end up looking like a bunch of goons.

The support cast was a mixed bag. Sheik Amar (played by Alfred Molina) was a delight to watch with good comic timing and his acting does stand out from the rest. He was supported adequately by Seso (played by Steve Toussaint) who was the typical African dude who could kill you with his eyes closed but has a heart and conscious. Then we had two brothers; Prince Garsiv (played by Toby Kebbell) and Prince Tus (played by Richard Coyle) who were like 3 year old kids with no brains of their own being manipulated by the other characters..

In the end, what really make this movie stand out are the stunning visuals. The world that unravels in front of us through graphics and well made sets is brilliant. The cinematography was top notch in every sense i.e. from the beautiful desert landscapes to the magnificent cities created. The story overall was also well laid out but some things could have been avoided to make the movie shorter (movie runtime: 116mins). As I said at the beginning of this review, I liked the movie in parts.

I hadn’t seen the original Iron Man movie in the theatre and so I blamed that to not liking it i.e. the big screen awe effect of having a super hero bash different villains was missing. So when I heard about the sequel, decided to watch it in the theatre. Till yesterday morning, I thought it was a 3D movie but on checking the cinestar website I realized it wasn’t. I think not having it in 3D was a huge mistake cause even though 3D is over rated, I’d think a movie like this would have gained a lot from it.

11pm show at Mall of the Emirates, I was a little excited after seeing everyone else looking forward to be amazed by Tony Stark aka Iron Man. 2 hours later and the only word that came to my head was rubbish. That’s how bad I thought the movie was even though everyone else seemed to like it in bits.

The problem is when I think about comic book movies, I have this high expectation because a comic book has so much material to build on so I assume the movie will be amazing and apart from a few, most of them are disappointing. I’m not a huge comic book person but I know a bit about them to know how bad these films always end up being. I suppose it’s similar to the problem that the Harry potter movie series faces.

Now talking about Iron Man 2. The story revolves around Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.), the rich multi millionaire play boy super hero who has privatized world peace. How the government is trying to get their hands on the technology/weapon that is Iron Man while trying to replicate it with the help of Hammer industries run by Justin Hammer (played by Sam Rockwell). This time we also had a side kick in the form of Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes (played this time by Don Cheadle) who was the other Iron Man (?). Then we have Ivan Vanko (played by Mickey Rourke) who manages beat Iron Man up in their first clash with his garage built whip thing called whiplash (according to IMDB) and then gets hired by Hammer industries and creates a droid army and a new suit for himself. Wish they’d given him more of a role apart from talking Russian and sarcastic smiles/giggle.

The ladies in the film were Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) and Natalie Rushman / Natasha Romanoff (played by Scarlett Johansson). Pepper Potts is Tony Starks secretary/love interest/better half etc … whatever you want to call it. Gwyneth Paltrow sleep walked through her tiny role which wasn't a bad thing while Scarlett Johansson was the eye candy (?) of the film to make the hyper guys happy. Tight clothes, skin show, kicking ass (literally) kind of summarized her predictable cliché role.

Finally we had the one eyed Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who tries to knock some sense into Tony Stark who goes off the hook in the middle of the movie. I wonder why Samuel L. Jackson agreed to do such an effortless role. Maybe it has something to do with the movie The Avengers.

Few things that annoyed me…
- If Ivan manages to beat up Iron Man so easily in his poorly funded garage project, I’d assume killing Ivan later on when he’s got a whole new armor (with the backing of Hammer industries) would be quite a work out for Iron man and his sidekick but the final show down between them was short and just too easy.
- Don’t call the creation of a new element an almost impossible procedure and then make Tony Stark create it without any hassles.
- Yes we know what USA thinks about Iran, Pakistan, North Korea etc. You don’t need to keep reminding us that through movies as well.
- Yes Tony Stark is a playboy but do you really need to stuff that fact into our face every single time.
- Justin Hammer was annoying….enough said.
- Villains are important, give them more to say.
- Do you really need a character in the movie for guys to ogle over.

I’m sure there were more points but I just can’t break my head over it. Honestly, Robert Downey Jr. did a good job playing TonyStark/Iron Man but the movie was just too boring, lame, predictable, cliché etc that his decent act couldn't save it for me. Overall I’m glad I just paid AED15 for the movie…it wasn’t worth anything more than that.

I went to watch ‘City of Life’ with a friend after the badminton tweetup on Saturday. It was a bit of a last minute decision because according the cinema websites; Saturday was the last day it was playing and both of us really wanted to watch it. That turned out to be wrong but that didn’t matter, it was a nice night out.

Directed, written and produced by Ali F. Mostafa, a UAE based film maker, I heard about the film for the first time during the Dubai international film festival 2009 where it supposedly ended up being the most watched film. Being the first Emirati full length feature, I was looking forward to seeing how Dubai had been depicted so when I heard about its release, I tried to find someone to go with. There was a tweetup for it but it clashed with some personal commitments so I missed that opportunity.

Anyway coming to the film, it revolves around the life of an Emirati called Faisal (played by Saoud Al Kaabi) who’s unsure about his identity in society, an Indian taxi driver called Basu (played by Sonu Sood) dreaming to become a big Indian actor, a flight attendant called Natalia Moldovan (played by Alexandra Maria Lara) looking for companionship and an old Filipino cardboard collector (played by Itlanas Jr) and how their lives converge in the end for better or worse.

‘City of life’ is a drama set in the urban environment that is Dubai. How people from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds are trying to find themselves, figure things out and live. It also shows how certain actions and their reactions leads to a domino effect in their lives where some find hope and some find a reason to live.

Saoud Al Kaabi played his role well though he was completely over shadowed by Yassin Alsalman who plays his aggressive emotional friend to perfection. Sonu Sood as the taxi driver dreaming big was good in patches as I thought at some points in the film he could have showed more emotions to get the viewers really involved in his plight. Alexandra Maria Lara and Jason Flemyng (playing the playboy Guy Berger) were not very convincing while Natalie Dormer (playing Natalia’s roommate Olga) was quite good in comparison. Ahmed Ahmed (playing restaurant owner Nasser) and Javed Jaffery (playing Suresh Khan) didn’t have big enough roles to make any impact on the viewer while Habib Ghuloom (playing Faisal’s father) was quite poor in his single style of dialogue delivery but I suppose his role didn’t have anything else to offer either.

For a person who’s directing his first full length feature, Ali F. Mostafa did a fantastic job. I love the opening bicycle scene and the way he incorporated shots from old Dubai i.e. Satwa with the modern Dubai i.e. SZR road. I also like the way he included the various point of views and lifestyles i.e. covering the local, western and Asian. The story was well written though a little cliché but then that is Dubai in a lot of ways. The camera work in some places was a bit shaky but maybe that’s how they wanted it to be.

What I didn’t like about the movie was that it seemed to be just another thing out of the UAE that was trying to promote ‘Brand Dubai’. I know most movies do that when it comes to the locations they use and I’m being a little too critical about it but I just felt it could have been avoided in some areas.

As I stated, it was a nice night out. A movie I recommend to any person who’s lived in the UAE even if you might not be able to relate to any of the characters cause just watching Dubai on the big screen and trying to figure out the various locations is fun in its own way plus you get a good story to enjoy on the side….

I've been asked by tbreak to review cameras. I've never reviewed anything in my life so I'm kinda looking forward to this. The first camera I've gotten my hands on is the Canon EOS 500D (also called Rebel T1i) that was released a year back. It's an entry level DSLR replacing the Canon EOS 450D (also called the Rebel XSi) which I personally liked. I haven't used it yet cause it uses SD cards instead of the normal CF cards so I need to go buy a SD card for this. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with a decent review in the 2 weeks I have this camera. I still need to figure out how I'm going to test it. This is exciting... :DCamera Model : Canon EOS 7D
Shooting Date/Time : 03/20/2010 02:56 PM
Tv(Shutter Speed) : 1/250
Av(Aperture Value) : f11
Metering Mode : Pattern
ISO Speed : 200
Lens : 50mm f2.8 Macro
Focal Length : 50mm

Last night as a last minute decision, I decided to go for the movie '9'. I had first seen the trailer during the US box office countdown on MBC 2 all the way back in November 2009. The concept looked interesting and I had ticked it off as a movie I would watch in the theater. Recently my sister mentioned that the movie was releasing soon so I looked it up on IMDB. Co-produced by Tim Burton was enough information for me to understand that '9' is going to be a very different movie and I wasn't disappointed.