food – Yogi's Blogosmos

I cross this building very frequently. Every single time I look at it I am reminded of my high school days. The above building used to be my friend’s family home for a number of years.

This house introduced me to a several new concepts. I had never heard of the term duplex house, until I walked into my friend’s house in this building for the very first time during my 10th standard. I was blown away by all the awards that were on display in the visitor’s room. My friend’s dad, director Durai was a famous Tamil film director from the 1970s and 1980s.

Their family used to run a fast-food restaurant, ‘Hot and Sweet Chat Home’ cum Ice-cream parlor selling Dollops ice-cream on the ground floor where you see the three shutters (in the photo). This was probably one of the very few fast-food restaurants in Madras (as Chennai was known then) in that era.

My family moved back to Chennai only in 1994, so the concept of fast-food restaurant was alien to me. My menu of evening snacks included just Verkadalai Burfi (Peanut Candy), Biscuits (Butter biscuit, Milkbikis, etc.), Vadai, Bajji, Bonda, and Onion Samosa. Hot and Sweet Chat Home introduced me to the snacks of Bollywood Gods – Bhelpuri, Pani Puri, Pav Bhajji, etc.

Until then I had only had Arun and Kwality ice creams. Dollops ice cream sounded an ultimate luxury to me. I guess Dollops brief association with Cadbury’s and Cadbury’s dancing female fan ad gave a Halo effect to Dollops. The restaurant used to have outdoor seating arrangement with an umbrella for each table. That was another novel sight for me.

I was introduced to the concept of playing cricket in the terrace in this building. I used to play cricket with my friend Pramod on the 3rd floor; sometimes we were joined by Pramod’s elder brother Prakash and/or their employee Moorthi.

How can I forget the multiple Christmas parties that Pramod that given to us in this building? The entire battalion of friends would descend on this house on Christmas. Not forget all that banter that would accompany the Christmas parties.

During my 11th and 12th after our family moved to Abhiramapuram, I used to frequently visit Pramod’s house in the evenings. Mostly it would be Pramod overseeing the restaurant. We would both be listening to songs on FM radio stations and chatting. I was introduced to listening to English songs on FM radio in this building – songs of Ricky Martin, Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys, etc. I was never able to follow the lyrics except for a few lines here and there. I assumed Pramod used to follow them better.

You should have seen the disappointment on my face when I walked into the restaurant one evening and Pramod telling me, “Pepsi Uma had come to the restaurant with her family and had left only a few minutes back?” I never even paused to think whether that was true until after typing the above sentences today.

A lot of evenings we hardly spoke much apart from listening to the songs. But I always felt like those were time well-spent. All good times do some to an end. Pramod went to do Engineering in Coimbatore. Hot and Sweet Chat Home had to be closed because the North Indian cook they had employed decided to go back to his hometown and they were not able to find a suitable replacement.

Pramod’s family relocated to another part of the city. I even lost touch with Pramod in between for a few years. Luckily, I was able to establish contact with him through a mutual friend and his brother. Thanks to WhatsApp, communication with friends these days is much easier. It’s another story that we don’t get to talk much until we meet face to face once a year or so.

Today, as I looked at this building with the shop closed (being a Sunday) and minimal light, I was overcome with sadness. I decided to go down memory lane and write this blog post.

Here is a Haiku to eulogize the good old times:

A magical world
Songs of friendship and banter
A bygone era.

I have been wanting to write a blog post about the yellow-colored billboard in the above photograph for some time now. The billboard announces that a restaurant has been featured in the Conde Nast’s Top 50 Restaurants in India in 2024. However, the name of the actual restaurant that made it to the list, Pumpkin Tales is not featured prominently in the billboard. The name/logo of Pumpkin Tales is featured in smaller size on the bottom right-hand side of the billboard and is almost completely hidden behind the leaves of a small plant!

The name/logo of the Chinese restaurant in the same building, Zhouyu is featured next to the billboard in an outdoor advertising lightbox. If one doesn’t bother to read the fine print associated with the yellow billboard or to go online and check at the Conde Nast list, there is a possibility of assuming that Zhouyu is the one that has made it to the Conde Nast list. This is exactly what happened with me a couple of months ago, and I ended up for a dinner at Zhouyu.

I have been wondering why a restaurant would commission and install a billboard in which its name is not featured prominently or could lead to confusion about another restaurant having won the award in its place. Unless if the other restaurant (Zhouyu) belongs to the same group/ management. I tried searching online.

Pumpkin Tales’ website does not list Zhouyu as one of the associated/ sister-concern restaurants in its locations section. Ditto for Zhouyu’s locations section as well which did not list Pumpkin Tales as one of the associated/ sister-concern restaurants. However, the Book a Table section on Pumpkin Tales website which led to Eatapp listed Zhouyu as one of the options in the dropdown list. I searched online and landed on a September 2020 article in the Mylapore Times with the headline, “Pumpkin Tales launches its Chinese restaurant ‘Zhouyu’ at Alwarpet.”

Is it genuine oversight from the restaurant management? I looked at the photo one more time. The prominent food image on the yellow billboard about Conde Nast list caught my attention this time. The food item resembles a Chinese/ South-east Asian dish in a white ceramic bowl with a couple of chopsticks placed on top of the bowl.

The combination of the image of what looks like a Chinese food item in the yellow billboard as well as the tagline, “A Chinese Kitchen” on top of Zhouyu in the outdoor advertising lightbox placed close to it could trip someone into making the wrong association between Zhouyu and the Conde Nast list, as happened with me.

To be fair when viewed from the other side, the food item on the yellow billboard and the Zhouyu outdoor advertising lightbox are spaced apart. So, the scope for confusion is lesser. Plus, there is nothing obstructing the Pumpkin Tales name.