Birthday

Another year slips by and I am none the wiser. Hitting 30 was cool and not very worrying however I noticed this year that suddenly I am feeling that life is catching on and many of the items on the todo list still remain unaccomplished. It was a good birthday though. Wifey booked a table for us the night before at the oldest Italian restaurant in Munich. I presumed we do something at home and continued to day dream about a bottle of Piero Antinori's finest Chianti all day at work so was a bit plussed with the going out idea. Munich being the fine place that it is and my wife being the finer restaurant picker that she is left me with no suprise when I found my bottle on the menu and thus began a memorable evening. I will limit my culinary verbosity to -it was so good that I can't tell you how good it was- lest some of the webtrotters get further offended by my obsession with food. The place warrants a second visit and is up there with the rest of our pics. Its worth mentioning that the last year was one where I was least communicative with my kin and kith however the number of bday wishes were outstanding, you'd think I actually have friends. I am dearly grateful to all those who took time to sms,email, call and meet to wish me. Of course if I were to wear my evil hat on, then I would say I should also thank birthday alarm, facebook and the INSEAD birthday alert too!! Truth be told I also have all that setup but I still forget to wish people. The day itself was spent lazing at home, we went to an Art Museum (which has been on my to-do list ever since I moved here) and drank in some masters from my schizophrenic friend Van Gogh. Invited a few friends home for dinner and merried the rest of the night away.

Barcelona

3GSM is still best excuse for telecom folks to network and party. Barcelona seems to be raking it in for accommodating for this event, the average hotel rates that I heard this time were atleast twice that of last year. A new addition to my CV, TV star. Yours truly graced the screens of CNN watchers (europe edition) when in Barcelona. My mug got captured while browsing through phones at the Nokia booth. Other things that I heard/ saw/did in Barca this time -Saw what at €2250 per night hotel room looked like - it sucked -Went to the best fish restaurant in town – Botafumeiro -Partied at harbour a few times -Saw some cool Samsung phones -Chowed on lots of tapas and fell in love with Serano ham again -Watched the Nokia house band sizzle -Met some new customers and started work on some interesting projects I quite enjoyed Barcelona this time around but I don't think I will go next year, the conference itself is really busy and get a bit boggling. Apart from the phone vendors almost everyone seems to be peddling the same wares inspite lots of noise in the industry about consolidation. This maybe an interesting venue for professional networkers however. Going to be in the desert next week, have not been there for many years and frankly don't remember much from the last time.

Gastronomia Extraordinaire

Last thursday was one of the highlight of our gormandizing career. We have had this place on our radar for a few months thanks to a friend of ours who was also an accomplice in our onetime debauchery and thanks to her we made it to this place. Tantris is the most talked about restaurant in Munich and it was Germany's first 3 star Michellin restaurant. They got a new chef a few years ago and it lost a star. I don't think I have ever been to any Michellin star places to begin with so this was a big step up for us. How was the food? - There was one very good item we ate (blue cheese with chicory) and everything else was excellent! The ambience was quite strange and the place had the capacity to pack in a lot of people. However the coup d'etat was the service, it was flawless. It had a very retro feel to the place and with a very light oriental undertone. Warning - this place is not light on the pocket but worth every penny we spent!! The start of lent in Germany is brought in alcoholic hedonism! Last Monday was Rosenmontag and marks the start of the drunken revelry that grips most of the country and for many hardcore partygoers this spills over into tuesday referred to as FaschingDienstag for which many Muencheners take the day off (including my doctor). I unfortunately picked up bronchitis along the way and could barely walk out of the house and not keel from choking myself coughing. So I missed most of the fun. I hate falling sick, not only do I feel like I am missing out but its depressing. We are now officially vegetarian for the next 6 weeks till easter! P.S. This post is dedicated to Rohit Girdhar.