Chp 688. To the Nuam

Yesterday, my blog friend and poet virtuoso Sanga Says baffled us all with his status update that was automatically translated. We had a ball in the comment section. Today I decided to pen down some thoughts based on his update :)

Inspired by a poet. To the Nuam.

on a Hill

faraway

stood a place, where we used to Talk

about hymning along

when you read familiar lines...

That's the place, where I await

your arrival

with a poem

penned just for you

written in angst

across the lines

with no limit

between the inner lines

if you permit

the inner line permit

as Westerners descend upon Lengpui

flashing their ILPs

one sap, two sap,

everywhere, sap2,

off to their destination paradise

a soul mate in their arms, for eternity

I too yearn for that moment

to arrive

at my destination

and embrace you in totality

a nawm em dan tur chuh!

to the nuam, to the nuam,

that's where I want to go with you

to the Nuam.

Chp 687. Moving from Zomato to Swiggy

[EDIT: Zomato responded to this post the very next day! Once you have read this, please read this follow-up post]



Yeah. A pretty bold headline. Like it's ever gonna make any impact on either Zomato or Swiggy at all, lolz.

Two giant food delivery companies, both having raised more than $150 Mn each, with a valuation of $1.4 Bn for Zomato and $1.2 Bn for Swiggy (if the deal with Alibaba comes through), will surely not be affected in any way because one random hungry Mizo working in Pune decided to order his morning Masala dosa from Swiggy rather than Zomato. :D

(this is where Luis Fonsi suddenly appears on the scene and sings - INSIGNIFICANTO) :P

But regardless of that, the topic of whether Zomato or Swiggy is better had always been regularly discussed among my group of friends and fellow foodies. Nobody talks about Food Panda anymore, lolz. Food Panda is pretty much like Gendry who rowed his boat and was never seen or heard of again (until the latest season).

Saying Zomato is better or worse than Swiggy is subjective. Their service differs not just from city to city but from locality to locality within the same city. I've had bad experiences with both, and many great experiences with both as well. Also, most of the bad reviews are about a particular restaurant's food quality, which has nothing to do with Zomato or Swiggy.

I think I have enough street cred to talk about my experience with Zomato because as of today, 29th November 2017, I have placed exactly 575 orders using their app.

Ok I am just a level 1 Foodie because I don't write food reviews or upload pictures on Zomato, I do that on my blog instead, as you can see from my previous post or the "Adventures of Tubby" series.

To me, UI (user interface) is a very important criterion for a good app, probably because of my digital advertising and web design background. I. JUST. CANNOT. DIGEST. an app with horrible UI design.

Back in 2012-13 when all these food ordering apps started popping up, we were using TinyOwl to order food. I remember Food Panda and Zomato had clunky UI and so I never used them. And then came Faasos who had this really clean UI and it became my regular food ordering app. I even became an ICU member (Intensive Chicken User).

Thank you @faasos for the ICU (Intensive Chicken User) badge and free rolls coupons! :D #faasosspeak pic.twitter.com/9CQ1Lq3Y

— Kima (@Mizohican) January 18, 2013

It was in 2015 that Zomato launched a separate app solely for ordering food, and their new sleek UI design and UX completely swept me off my feet, and I have been on Zomato ever since. But now, I started using Swiggy more regularly. Here are my personal comparisons between Zomato and Swiggy and why I decided to switch loyalty.

1. DELIVERY TIME

I think we all know the main difference between Zomato and Swiggy. Through Zomato, you can order food from a list of restaurants they have tied up with, and the restaurant will deliver your order to your address. Swiggy on the other hand has its own fleet of delivery boys who personally go to the restaurant and deliver your order to your location.

Because of this, Swiggy has a lesser average delivery time. Now, I am not finicky about delivery time, I don't mind if my order is late by 10-20 minutes, but there had been a couple of times when my Zomato order took more than an hour beyond the estimated delivery time. Earlier, Zomato used to give me free Zomato credits whenever that happened, so I didn't mind much, but lately, all they gave me was their "apology", and that kinda left a bad taste in my mouth, especially since I am such a regular customer.

Zomato 0 : 1 Swiggy

2. MINIMUM ORDER

This is another USP of Swiggy. No minimum order amount. Probably works well with the student community. As for me, this really doesn't matter because my Zomato order always exceeds the minimum amount, lolz. Yeah, I love food :P So this is a draw for both.

Zomato 1 : 2 Swiggy

3. COST AND OFFERS

This is another sector me and my jobless colleagues at work tried to research on. We compared the cost of the same dish from the same restaurant (final cost after GST, packaging and delivery charges) taking a sample space of around 20 restaurants, and eventually came to the conclusion that it is inconsistent. Some restaurants were a bit cheaper at Zomato, while others were a bit cheaper at Swiggy. So again, it's a draw.

Zomato 2 : 3 Swiggy

4. SPECIAL TREATS

Zomato wins hands down in this sector. It costs just 250 bucks annually to subscribe to this and you get free desserts from selected outlets. For a regular customer, this is an extremely good offer. Looking at Swiggy to reciprocate this :)

Zomato 3 : 3 Swiggy

5. EXCLUSIVENESS

There are a few outlets marked as "exclusive" at Zomato. But again, I could see some of those so called Zomato exclusive restaurants at Swiggy as well, lewlz. Maybe those restaurants are breaking an agreement they signed with Zomato, I don't know, but they are definitely not that exclusive. Also there had been many times when I ordered from Zomato and the restaurant delivered the food with a Swiggy or Food Panda packaging :D Overall, Swiggy covers a much larger base here in Koregaon Park and Kalyani Nagar, Pune, with many restaurants available at Swiggy that aren't at Zomato. Even though this is subjective and may not be like that at other locations, I give this round to Swiggy.

Zomato 3 : 4 Swiggy

6. CUSTOMER SERVICE

This is where Zomato shines. They have a very reliable customer service feature who promptly responds to all my queries or complaints. I have read some reviews saying Zomato customer service is bad, but frankly for me, I have never experienced that. Maybe it's because I have 500+ orders and hence treated differently by a senior staff, I don't know, but I am extremely satisfied with their customer service.

Swiggy on the other hand… ooh boy… So when I first started using Swiggy, it was a long time ago when they had tied up with Tapzo app. I registered from Tapzo back then. Years later, I installed the Swiggy app on my phone, and somehow my number was still registered, and my name was automatically saved as "TAPZO USER". I couldn't change it and requested their customer service to change it many times. Finally on my fourth or fifth request, they changed my name. But apparently that changed only on my device. On the delivery boy's device, my name is still "TAPZO USER" as of today, which always creates confusion when I order from office.

Zomato 4 : 4 Swiggy

7. ORDER TRACKING

I love Swiggy for this. If you're just jobless and eagerly waiting for your order to arrive, sometimes it feels good to be preoccupied by just watching the small Swiggy scooter move towards your location, pretty much like how you can track your Ola or Uber ride. Zomato on the other hand, delivers very randomly. Sometimes I receive my order 30 minutes late, and sometimes 30 minutes early! (which may be good, except I order from office and there are times when I'm stuck in a meeting and I order lunch, planning the time so that the ETA of food coincides with the end of the meeting).

Zomato 4 : 5 Swiggy

8. PAST ORDERS

Zomato shows how many orders I have placed through their app till today, as you can see from the image on this post. Swiggy doesn't have that feature. And hell no I'm not gonna freaking count all my past orders manually one by one. Ain't nobody got time for dat! Also, the lastest Zomato app update shows your past order from each restaurant, a feature I so badly needed.

Zomato 5 : 5 Swiggy

9. UI Design

As I mentioned earlier, Zomato blew me away with their UI design. But soon Swiggy came with an even better UI, where one can see images of some of the dishes served. That was when I slowly started using Swiggy more. In the latest update, Zomato too has this feature. In fact, the latest Zomato app UI design is almost a xerox copy of Swiggy. For that, I'm gonna give this round to Swiggy.

Zomato 5 : 6 Swiggy

10. BEVERAGES

For some strange reasons, most of the restaurants don't serve beverages through Swiggy, but the same restaurants do from Zomato. Also, there are still a number of bugs on Swiggy. For example, one of my favorite South Indian restaurants on Swiggy is Madras Coffee House (which isn't there on Zomato). From the Swiggy app, I cannot select any beverages including filter coffee, but at the checkout page, it asks me if there are any extra things I want to add, like filter coffee. From THERE only can I select filter coffee, lolz.

Zomato 6 : 6 Swiggy

It may seem like a draw, but Zomato won on most of the points that really matter, and this may look like a big win for Zomato, EXCEPT for one very important reason, in fact the most important reason of all on why I have migrated to Swiggy from Zomato –

11. DOORSTEP DELIVERY

THIS is the reason why Swiggy has won me over, why I hardly order from Zomato anymore. From the 500+ orders that I have placed through Zomato, at least 70% are from office. I work at a large Business Center, where other floors are occupied by other companies as well. Hence, entry is very strict and we have to show our IDs to the security at the gate before entering the premises.

Now being a foodie, I love experimenting and ordering from different restaurants. Most of these restaurants from Zomato send their delivery boys who DO NOT have proper IDs with them. And so I have to leave my office floor and go down 16 floors and walk all the way outside to the main gate to collect my food and then return to my office. The four elevators are also quite busy at this time as it is lunch hour and employees from different companies are going up or down to the 7th and 10th floors where the two common cafeterias are located.

So yeah, you can feel my frustration, right? But when it comes to Swiggy, all their delivery boys have proper IDs and they come deliver my lunch right at my office floor without me having to go anywhere.

That is why I have started using Swiggy more regularly. All my friends in office (and I'm sure the people from the other companies in our building) have all switched to Swiggy as well because of this. This is something Zomato needs to fix asap, otherwise they're just going to keep losing more and more loyal customers.

Some of you might consider this last point trivial, like, "Hey Kima, why don't you just suck it up and walk to the main gate to collect your lunch?" but hey, at the end of the day, I'm spending my hard-earned money for a "service", and when a competition is offering me a much better and more convenient service, I have the total freedom to shift to that new service, right? :) Unless of course you're generous enough to pay for my Zomato lunch every day, then I surely don't mind walking outside to collect my food :P

If Zomato fixes this issue (maybe instruct all their affiliated restaurants to have their delivery boys carry proper IDs, or at least mention in the app which restaurants have delivery boys with ID cards), I think a lot of us will get back to using it…

So what about you? Which is your current favorite food ordering app, Zomato or Swiggy?

Chp 686. Food on Art

So I received a few comments regarding my previous post on Mizo Chilli about the food I displayed - People really liked my table runner. The food went well with the background, they said. I agreed.

For those of you who came in late, I bought that table runner and placemat set from iCandy, a shop run by my good friend and recent mother Stephanie Halliday, who is still figuring out how to act more mature and adult than her newly born daughter Isabelle :P

You can read about her shop here - Chp 657. Get some sweet stuff at iCandy.

Even though I live alone as a bachelor, I try to make my apartment as family-like as possible. Though I eat all my food in my bedroom slumped on my bed while watching my favorite TV shows, whenever I have guests, I try to make sure we eat properly on the dining table, just like a typical normal Mizo family :)

When my mom and niece visited me a few months ago, my mom was truly impressed with my dining table setting. She was like, OMG I am so freaking proud of my boi, he is the bestest son in the whole wide world, my son is lit AF.

I mean, she never said any of those stuff, but I could feel it, you know :P

 

And of course when mom left, my other family here in Pune would come over, and the way we utilized the table runner was a little bit different… :D

Hey, at least we're doing it together on the table :D

I for one firmly believes that a family that eats (or drinks) together, stays together. That is why I always insists we dine together at the same time. Sitting down and eating together just makes everyone feel so much closer IMHO, rather than people just eating buffet style at any time they like separately.

My brother from another mother Gary Hrahsel would occasionally come to help me cook a weekend meal. See how we had set up the table properly, you won't believe this is a bachelor's pad :P

And even when it's not about food, my KP neighbors Vanzama and CTa would come over to play Jenga on my table runner because, you know, some chicas had broken their hearts once again :D

So that's a brief description about my dining table and table runner.

In this post, I would just like to put up some of the food pics I had taken on my table runner. I will not be describing them or talking about where I ordered them from etc. Let the section from here onwards be just about food. No words. Pure food. Beautiful food on beautiful traditional Mizo ipte chei design table runner. Food on Art.

See if you can identify the name of each dish, and you can reply on FB or comment on my blog post with your guesses. The one with the most correct answers will win a special lunch or dinner treat from me :) and you know when it comes to food, I don't kid around.

So here goes. Hope you enjoy this mouth-watering scrumptious show, and hope it builds up some appetite for your lunch…

Food on Art. Exhibit (01).

Food on Art. Exhibit (02).

Food on Art. Exhibit (03).

Food on Art. Exhibit (04).

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There are many more, but I think these will do. I don't wanna drown you in food or hog your data bandwidth. Looking forward to your answers. Cheers :)

Chp 685. Mizo Chilli

A lot of chilled stuff happened the past few days.

First, it was the glorious moment for India as Manushi Chhillar was crowned Miss World 2017.

And then came Sashi Tharoor who took a potshot at demonetization by tweeting, "What a mistake to demonetise our currency! BJP should have realised that Indian cash dominates the globe: look, even our Chhillar has become Miss World!"

His tweet was an attempt to make a pun on Chhillar (chillar) which means "loose change".

It got a mixed response though, with many people being offended by his tweet and even the NCW stepping in while others tweeted back saying this was a light-hearted humor and that the NCW should focus on more serious issues like the bounty placed on Deepika's head.

Ah, just another usual day at our Indian social media.

Finally, Miss World herself sent a classy response saying, "Chhillar talk is just small change - let's not forget the 'chill' within Chhillar".

And with that, I guess everybody chilled out...

For us Mizos, we had another reason to keep chilling.

Yesterday, our state government sent out an official circular stating that the popular and common chilli in Mizoram known as "Vaihmarchate" or "Bird's eye chilli" will henceforth be called "Mizo Chilli" from now onwards.

Wooohoooo! :D

I think this is a wonderful move. To celebrate this moment, as a long term chilli fan, I made this for dinner last night...

Just… just… appreciate the awesome art masterpiece display above okay? :D :P It took me a really long time to carve those letters out from my Prosciutto dry-cured ham dinner! By the way, the green pieces below the words "Mizo Chilli" above are the actual Mizo Chilli pickles. :)

It would have been more apt if I had made a Mizo cuisine last night, but it's a weekday and I cook Mizo dishes only during the weekends. Still, this was my contribution to mark this momentous occasion.

For those of you who want to see the circular, here it is (thanks to Rinkimi for sending this info to me) -

So, yes, ladies and gentlemen, from now on, all Bird's eye chilli or Vaihmarchate grown in Mizoram will now be known as Mizo Chilli.

There is a popular misconception within our Mizo community, especially among the Millennials and Generation Z, regarding our Vaihmarchate. I have heard many people say stuff like, "When we travel and live outside Mizoram, we call this chilli Mizo hmarcha, but when we are in Mizoram, we call it Vai hmarcha. That is so strange and funny."

Well, according to my good friend and brave firefighter from the USA Henry Vangchhia, he said that the "Vai" in Vaihmarcha has absolutely nothing to do with the term "Vai" used to describe a non-Mizo. The "Vai" here is used to denote something small, just as how Vaimîm means "small species of mîm (corn)", he said. This was something that his grandfather Pu Laldailova had told him many years ago.

And yes, this makes sense. This particular chilli specimen does not grow anywhere else in India other than the North Eastern states (and a few regions in Kerala), and is more popular in South East Asian countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore etc. In fact another popular name for Bird's eye chilli is Thai chilli.

That is why every Friday evening here in Pune, I rush to Nature's Basket at KP straight from office to buy their freshly arrived batch of Thai bird chilli!

Because by Saturday evening, they are all gone. Sometimes I would get some for my friends Sanga and the others @ Aundh since their Nature's Basket over there doesn't have this particular chilli. Yeah, KP is the best :)

We usually prepare Vaihmarchate Mizo Chilli by grinding them and making them into chutney-like paste with roasted tomatoes and onions. Below is a recent Mizo Chilli paste made by my neighbour Zama. One bowl contains fermented soybean, and the other is without, because some of his non-Mizo guests that night didn't eat bekang.

Before writing this blog post, we had a brief discussion at out Mizo Bloggers WhatsApp group. I asked the others if the word "Hmarcha" has anything to do with "Hmar" people. The others laughed and ridiculed me for my assumption, but some of them said it was quite appropriate because Hmar cuisines are extremely spicy and they have a very high tolerance limit when it comes to spicy food (Hmar bai is sooooo freaking awesomeee!).

But later Hrangkhupa told us that the Mizo word Hmarcha was derived from the Hindi/Assamese word Marcha (Mirch/Mirchi).

Apart from Mizo Chilli (Vaihmarchate), we also have Hmarchapui. It is bigger in size and used in a number of dishes as condiment. It is slightly thicker than the common green chillies (hara mirch) that we get all across India.

This is hmarchapui (pic courtesy Muantea, Mizo Bloggers group) -

We also roast it regularly to make different chutney paste…

Trust me, this chilli is also to die for. The normal green chilli over here does not exactly have the same zing, though I think it is the closest substitute to it. Here is John trying to roast normal green chillies at Sanga's place :D

So these are the two main types of chillies in Mizoram - Vaihmarchate, now known as Mizo chilli, and Hmarchapui. Other than this, there are also other types of chillies, though not as common as these two. For example, we have a popular chilli flake called "Hmarcha hmui rawt dip". It is a chilli that has been roasted, dried and grinded. This is made from neither Mizo chilli nor Hmarchapui, but just plain chilli.

Here's a pic of that particular plain chilli that Muantea sent me -

Once it is grinded to pieces, it is packed into smaller packets and they last for a very long time. I usually add this to my fried eggs or bekang chutney here in Pune.

I'm still trying to get accustomed to calling Bird's eye chilli as Mizo chilli on my blog, I'm sure I'll get used to it after some time.

I did have this brief discussion with a friend yesterday, who thought it was quite unnecessary to change the name.

"A bird's eye chilli by any other name is still a bird's eye chilli," he quipped.

"True," I replied, "But take a look at Raja Mirchi, aka King Chilly or Ghost pepper. It is also known as "Bhut jolokia" in Assam, "U-Morok" among the Meiteis of Manipur, "Malcha-Phoh" among the Kukis and "Naga chilli" in Nagaland. They're all the same and everybody knows that, I don't think it hurts to have our own regional name for it."

"But we already have a name for it - Vaihmarchate!" he said.

Well, he kinda got me there. But I think the name "Mizo chilli" is more catchy, especially to non-Mizos outside the state, and as a foodie who regularly takes part in different food fests and North East cookouts, I would be filled with so much pride if some of the guests exclaimed, "Oooh, this Mizo chilli is so awesome!"

At the end of the day, the circular clearly mentions that this is just a Geographical Indication, meaning only the Bird's eye chilli grown in Mizoram will be called Mizo chilli. I think this is more about patenting the name. I can still very much call it Bird's eye chilli if it is from someplace else. As David from our Bloggers Group said, "This is about preventing bio-piracy and establishing a secure place at the gene-bank so that in the future, outsiders will not steal our home-grown identity."

Touché.

So peeps, just chill. :)

Enjoy Mizo chilli if you haven't tried it out yet. You can order this chilli and a lot of other awesome spicy Northeastern chillies from giskaa.com and placeoforigin.in. And there's this new place I discovered recently called sprig.co.in that sells Bhut jolokia sauce! I have placed an order and will let you know how it is once it arrives.

Until then, keep chilling yo.

Cheers!

[Addendum: I did mention earlier that you will also find Bird's eye chilli in Kerala, but trust me, they are not as spicy as the ones from North East.]

Chp 684. Tattoo makeover makeover

Recently I got a tattoo makeover of my previous tattoo makeover :D

There's this really talented Mizo tattoo artist called Zuia here in Pune. He has his own Tattoo parlour. When Sanga heard that I wanted to retouch my previous tattoo makeover, he took me to his house. Zuia took photos of my tats and brainstormed on the best way to cover it up.

After a week or two, he told me that he was ready with his design. That day, some of my friends too went with me to his tattoo parlour as they wanted to see the whole process of someone getting inked.

Sanga drove us to the place with his car. Sanga by the way has an indirect connection to one of my infamous tattoos that only a few of our close friends know about. :D

The journey was a bit long as the shop was located at the suburban area of Pimple Saudagar. It was also my first time at this locality.

Finally, we reached Ink Land Tattoo. It is situated near the busy Kokane Chowk (the correct pronunciation is Ko-ka-ne, though it's sounds so cool to call it ko-kain :P )

The shop was awesome, with all the proper equipment and tattoo seats in place.

You can follow Ink Land Tattoo Facebook page here as well. Zuia has kept a large collection of his past work there.

The moment we met him, Zuia got to work immediately, as he had a long list of appointments after me. He showed me the final image of the Samurai warrior that we both agreed upon.

He measured the required size and then printed the image out on a printer. He then traced that exact image on a special paper. That paper is something like those carbon papers we used to use before the age of internet.

Once done, he shaved the tattoo area of my arm with a disposable blade and then pasted that special paper and slowly peeled it off. The imprint of the image outline remained on my arm.

He applied a lot of disinfectant as well. While me and the guys were completely captivated with what Zuia was doing, what were the ladies up to?

Oh.

:D

By the way, Zuia admitted that most tattoo artists don't like to do makeover work because it is a big challenge for them, and since it doesn't turn out as good as new tattoos are supposed to, the artist ends up getting a bad rep for that.

But in my case, he was willing to work on it because of our Mizo-Mizo connection, even though this wasn't just a tattoo makeover but a tattoo makeover makeover! :)

To know more about my previous tattoo makeover, you can read my old blog post here - Chp 499. Tattoo Makeover.

To cut a long story short, I initially had this shitty tattoo…

Finally saw a Tattoo worse than mine. Thats @Mizohican's tiger that was trying to turn http://twitpic.com/3643h1

— Sidharth Rao (@sidharthrao) November 12, 2010

The tattoo artist back then worked his magic on the above abomination of a tattoo, and managed to transform it into this -

For details of the process or the background story on my first shitty tattoo, do visit the link given above :)

And so I was a happy man. The makeover design covered up the old design nicely. But not for long. Within a couple of weeks, the new tattoo faded, and most of the Maori design and shadings completely disappeared!

It could be because of a combination of reasons - either the ink used was of inferior quality, or the artist didn't pierce deep enough, or I wasn't taking care of the post-tats treatment well enough.

Whatever be it, the so called "tiger" resurfaced and reared its ugly head again.

Now you can see why most tattoo artists hesitate to take up jobs like this.

But that did not deter Zuia and he got to work immediately.

Zuia also advised me that I should get this tattoo in different batches, waiting for each batch to heal first before the next sitting.

And so on the first sitting, Zuia did the entire outlines and important thick lines.

After that we all headed back to Pune Aundh.

It took two weeks for the outline to completely heal. I was taking good care of it, making sure the area was well lubricated with Vaseline or baby oil the entire time.

On the second sitting, Sanga went with me again. The others had seen enough I guess (and yes, it would be quite boring for those not interested in tattoos).

For the shading, Zuia used four different shades of black.

He also used two different types of needles - one was used to re-outline a few sections (single precision needle) and the other one used for shading had 12 freaking needles in it!

Good right? A very beautiful masterpiece indeed. No traces of that God-forsaken tiger, lolz.

But Zuia wasn't done yet!

After this, we again sat down for around an hour where he used only white ink. It was to polish the tattoo and give it a glossy-like finishing.

Check out the end result! :)

Really awesome.

On my third sitting, I didn't want to bother my friends again and went to his tattoo parlour alone. This time we decided to do both the outline and shading in one sitting as the remaining image wasn't that big.

The Dojo that he drew for the background looked really cool.

We quickly started off after that. Once he had done the outline, we took a break and had lunch. After lunch we continued again. There was an appointment at 3 PM so I gave way to the beautiful lady who came to get a feather tattoo done on her forearm.

Once she left, Zuia resumed work, and finally completed the Dojo.

We also put up a few other designs and shadings below the Dojo and till today, his work is clearly visible on my arm. I’m planning to get a few more designs and maybe even cover up my first tattoo which is the Chinese character (which means "East", and not "Schezwan Chicken noodles" contrary to popular belief :P )

So I'll update you all once I do that.

Do "like" Ink Land Tattoo on Facebook, and if you want to contact Zuia, his number is +91 7721084552. He'll even give you a discount if you tell him you heard about him from my blog post :)

Until then, cheers, and always try to live your life like a permanent tattoo. With no ragrets regrets. Ponder on that for a few minutes and you'll see how deep that sinks in. Ciao.