Restaurant 2: Royal India

Visited it in Salt Lake City - Utah. It is quite a westernized Indian restaurant with lot of elephant toys and Tajmahal decorations. It has a tourist focused interiors.

Food is good though. Its menu has variety in terms of trying out samosa, chhola bhathoora etc. You can even try out dosa variety here. Dessert has a very nice Kulfi bowl.

We had a confusion where we ordered for keema samosa and got aaloo samosa.. but waiter immediately got a plate of original order too. Fast service.. no jolly waiters though.

If you visit SLC and are looking for indian food, it too is worth a visit.

Links:
http://www.royalindiautah.com/
http://www.yelp.com/biz/royal-india-sandy

Restaurant 1 - Bombay House (Salt Lake City - Utah)

Visited this highly rated place in Salt Lake City for indian food. The experience was definitely better than my expectations. Interiors were soothing (though not indian enough). We were five persons together and enjoyed giving order in punjabi. Food was served with minimal accent too.

About the food, it is fairly high in taste (but don't compare with what you get in India). Besides being tasty, there is a good variety for vegetarians as well. You can order things like bhajji and lassi and not be disappointed.

Recommended. Worth visiting.

External Links:
http://www.bombayhouse.com/
http://www.yelp.com/biz/bombay-house-salt-lake-city

Update from Austin

A lot has happenned since last post. My life has gotten into Run-the-Business mode from Change-the-Business. Things are getting stabilised - Home / office... no change in any relationship is taking things towards maturity. How good/bad is it? - I have not sat down to review in detail. Does it all smell of complacency? partly yes. Right now, it is about experiencing a calm but busy life. It is worth feeling once in a while.

The big new thing that happenned recently is that I am on an official trip to Austin (Texas) for 4 weeks - A chance to get flavour of the States first hand. It has been a week here and so far it has been good.

Some entirely new experiences would be - A fully AUTOMATED bright red CAR that I drive everyday :); big, fast and long roads - so big & fast that nobody has to overtake and so long that nobody bothers to walk; vertically challenged buildings - most of the buildings have only ground floor - even in primary shopping areas; huge parking space - have not found any trouble with parking before any shopping complex; No honking drive - I have driven more than 200 miles and have not been honked at yet - it's an achievement though ;-) ; Music tastes so different in the car here - in absence of honking; a good morning culture - people keep saying good morning to each other all the time - even to people they do not know and do not bother to know - and somehow it is only in mornings... weird; huge variety - can you believe that walmart has more than 15 different kind of salts - with different composition and use!!; you do not give your credit card to anyone - you swipe it yourself when making purchase - so secure and good; self-service gas stations - you have to fill petrol in your car yourself and make automated payment; cost of living is not too different from India - days are not far when you can earn in India and spend in the states;

Please ignore the huge assumptions and generalizations I have made above. But you get the idea - right?

So far so good. Let's see how rest of the trip goes.

An update about me

A fair lot has changed since last post. I settled in new job and got control of it. I settled in new location. I married the girl I wanted to and am settling down with her. :) :) :)

I did more shopping than I have done in past 5 years combined... I lived in a place much cleaner than I have lived in, in past many years. I started buying gifts for occasions I usually would not bother about.....

I faced more frequent emotional extremes in last 12 months than probably in past 20 years. I hurted the people I care about most - and hurted them harder than I ever did... I prayed more in past few months than I might have done in my entire life.

Quite a bit for 6 months... at least if compared with history.

One more important and not very visible thing has changed - Some things that never made sense are suddenly at the point of becoming obvious. And I mean it in a positive way.

It feels like fate had denied me an important lesson.. and is teaching it to me now.

I am talking about things as simple as working towards the goal... or taking one step at a time... or taking calculated risks.. or using healing power of love..

I always thought that I understand whatever little they have to offer.. which is gyan sessions .. that keep a few people on their toes for next few days... or some liners used to bring consensus or solve a conflict or moderate a discussion.. or writing gyan books and earning some quick bucks.. or a way to spend a sunday afternoon by reflecting.. such stuff...

But now, I find its another view in a very different light .. I find it as a way of life... a thought process... something much closer to me than I thought it would ever be.. and all this is coming without any gyan sessions or gyan books or any such crap.. it comes from hard examples.. happenning Live!

These learnings are coming my way. naturally. It is Neat!


For me, 'Winning' got redefined a bit. In past, I have fought pretty hard in adverse odds.. I have taken strong entry gates head on... The gates would never open.. I shredded them to pieces.. they just would not open.

And that became my approach to solving problems. Tear them apart! Period.
But in past few months, I have seen gates opening up.. from inside.. I wish I could explain how different this experience is..

The sound of another gate opening - it gives me a kick. Oh it does!

I finally see small achievements adding up to victory.

Is it true or is it a random high? or just a phase of life? or some goodluck that my wife has brought in? Shall wait for future to answer it.

Book Review - Competing on Analytics

With all the craze in the air about analytics book, I had been trying to get hold of it for long.Got a chance recently. Here is what I think about it.


This book has a clearly defined target market – mid to senior management professionals, who have not thought about analytics seriously, or those who are not well versed with use of Business Intelligence. This book breaks the glass wall for these executives, puts things in perspective and makes the word ‘Analytics’ much more approachable.

It puts many a thoughts in few tables and compiles them nicely in one place – something not readily available in the market today.

Simply put, this book is meant to convince companies to embrace analytics as a tool for outperforming competition. Period.

The book has two parts - one on the nature of analytical competition and one on building an analytic competency. The first describes an analytical competitor and how this approach can be used in both internal and external processes. The second lays out a roadmap for becoming an analytical competitor, how to manage analytical people, a quick overview of a business intelligence architecture and some predictions for the future.

The book outlines four pillars of analytical competition - a distinctive capability, enterprise-wide analytics, senior management commitment and large scale ambition. It lays out 5 stages of analytic competition from Analytically Impaired (flying blind) to Analytic Competitor (analytics as primary driver of performance and value).

For analytics professionals, it serves as a support for selling analytics services. It creates an aura in the environment that lubricates analytics selling.

However, it does not answer the question ‘How’. For analysts, more or less, this book ends up as an assortment of shallow descriptions of companies that use analytics as a competitive advantage. If one has reasonable idea about analytics industry, this book may not be more informative than a well written magazine article.

Author does not claim to have unique insights. Book does not promote any new principle of strategy. It does not teach how to implement tools. It does not discuss hardships in implementing analytics.

Anecdotes are repetitive – that too without convincingly demonstrating why those companies are so strong in analytics, or how one can follow their path. ‘Analytics’ is more descriptive than analytical – at least in the way book defines analytics. For an analyst, at best it gives some jargons to standardize and pull into vocabulary.

It is an interesting afternoon read but nothing worth retaining or referring back to. Also, if you are new to analytics, I would recommend you to skip the book and sit with someone who understands analytics. S/he would give a fairly good idea.