Terrace Grill - Shelbyville Michigan

Terrace Grill - review which I had yelped too
http://baypointeinn.com/lakefront-dining/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall – 4.17

The ‘Terrace Grille’ restaurant is part and parcel of the Bay point inn @ Gun Lake, Michigan. It is tucked away in a far corner of Shelbyville, MI. I hit upon this little ‘ambient’ gem when I was searching for a quiet birthday dine avenue with my wife for her birthday. I had found the website, read the Yelp reviews and made up my mind for its shear ambience. The price points are considered ‘Medium-High’ as per my perspective.

Service – 4.5/5

I had reserved a table for two and was welcomed at the reception with a warm smile and no wait. We were ushered to the table which was at the outdoor patio.  The gentleman who took the order was very patient, knowledgeable and did know of the restaurant menu.

He even did pick one of the dishes as we were debating which might be better to go with. Full marks to that service at the front desk and the person who was waiting our table.

We were even served a couple of chocolate dipped strawberries on a white plate with ‘happy birthday’ written on it with chocolate -  as a birthday gift to my wife , this made the day better…

The couple of cons that I can think of was that the waiter didn’t turn to check on for a taste of the wine before serving the whole glass, with the price point I did expect that, but nevertheless the experience was good.

Ambience – 3.5/5

To me ambience not only is restricted to the chairs, tables, silverware and the ecosystem – it also includes how clean your surroundings are to give a whole some dining experience.

The lakeside tables were arranged well along with gas flame heaters so as to offset the little chilly breeze at that time. Loved the lake side arrangement but the turn off was that there were artificial little candles set up on the table which took away the natural beauty of things.  They could easily replace it with real candles in the same cage.

The setting was too good to be true on the lake side overlooking the boats on the lake and lot of energetic population walking on the shore of the lake. We watched the sunset during our dinner from the seating in the patio. Worth the dollars.

The big set off in this area was that the table was not cleaned before we were requested to be seated – there were leftovers from the previous guests and the lady made a good attempt to clean it up later. The next big TURN OFF was that the spoon which was totally untidy when brought to the table, had to request a new clean spoon – how can you get that wrong at such a good location??

Food Quality – 4/5

I started with the Argentinian Malbec and the Soup de jour – which was the Cajun Crawfish one for the day.The Malbec was served right and tasted good too. The bread which was served along with an olive oil – herb mix was ok to my taste. Felt the bread was too hard to my liking and the paste was too olive oily – no qualms though.

The soup was flavorful but lacked those little bites of crawfish which you crave for in the soup. It was really done right and of right consistency but the there was no soup spoon.

Being a sea food lover couldn’t resist ordering the Jumbo lump crab cakes – they were made from good crab meat, crusted right and cooked to perfection. This was served with cabbage slaw which was pickled just right for the taste buds along with the crab.

The NY steak with horseradish sauce along with a good portion of Cajun Redskin Potatoes, Zucchini, Yellow Squash and Bloody Mary Butter. The Cajun potatoes were really worth mentioning was really tasty and flavorful. I am not a big fan of yellow squash so passed it around to my wife. We wanted the steak medium well and it was a good portion and rightly cooked and good meat. The horseradish sauce was a little overpowering from my perspective so went easy on it after my first bite.

Hawaiian Ahi tuna was the best among the lot with distinct flavor of the tuna coming out of the cuts and well . The cilantro rice on the seared Ahi was low on cilantro and the accompanying coconut sause and one of the other sauces didn’t meet our expectations.

Then came the restaurant courtesy of strawberries dipped in rich chocolate that we loved – with the happy birthday note on the plate …

Overall a great experience and if I would dine again it is a 3-YES YESYESYES but with a caveat on the cleanliness aspect.  Overall a great restaurant with lovely ambience and some good food.

 

How Blue is your Blood ????

It all started when one of my friends and colleague commented on the sony TV I had - " isn't it time to get a bigger one"  ? I just didn't reply coz there was a flurry of thoughts that overtook me - it was a 32" LCD TV and considering the first TV we had in our family - a BPL SANYO 14" black n white one with a pair of overhead antenna. This one was BIG..
THEN:
my mind wandered to all the things my dad as a central govt employee had bought us and also the upbringing we had and what and how the bar will be set for my now quickly growing 7 month old junior. My usual day started at 0630 and then watching my dad working on his small kitchen garden before he left for work, then the usual 'getting ready for school' and the highlight was the fight for the socks with the elastic bands still intact , with my sisters . I was very particular of dressing up right for school - well pressed clothes , polished shoes and right socks.

After that there used to be a 20 minute brisk walk to my school - be it rain or shine used to walk the distance with my friends till standard 9 where i used to take my Dad's second hand bicycle , feeling very proud about it.

I loved sports at school and used to play almost everything from volleyball, Table tennis, cricket , soccer to basketball .. during our summer vacation for the coaching camp we needed to have sport shoes , bats and racquets. I pleaded with my dad to get me a pair of shoes and was looking for getting a pair of "power" shoes then endorsed by ace cricketer Kapil Dev. After much convincing I know my dad somehow bought me that shoe but I had to feel content with the base brand for the Table tennis bat and had to live with a loaned cricket bat for that summer.

After playing a couple of matches in hot Trichy sun , some of my effluent friends would invite for a cold drink which was a total luxury to me that time coz my dad hated the cola family and was right on saying 'carbonated drinks' are not good for health. So it used to be those times or when my uncle visited us from Chennai I would get a chance to taste the 'tabooed' drink..
I was about to join standard 10 when there were a 3 major milestones in my life  - i owned a parker pen and a watch  which were gifts from my grandpa for having done well in academics ; the last one was that i removed my moustache  with my dad's rustic shaving set..

One of our other pastime was to go swimming and fishing at a irrigation canal which was like a 45 minutes walk/run from our school. We used to swim in our undies and then with a self made fishing rod which was essentially twine, a stick long enough, and a hook (which was the only thing bought from a store) and then bait which we found from the muddy beach nearby. And then fish for the finger-fish (so tiny)..  those days were those with all these memories , trying to put perspective on those in my current picture is the 'NOW' part below

NOW:
The picture is after 2 decades...I have a LCD 32" television, an Xbox with Kinect , a roku player and a Lenovo state of the art "all in one" desktop, iphone to keep me connected and an epad for bedtime viewing. I was even thinking of  acquiring the 50" TV which was up for sale during this black friday..I just held back to that blue trying to overtake my red..

I have a whole bunch of branded socks in my wardrobe - separated out for training, official mon thru thu and Friday ones . I have an array of shoes to chose from which includes all good brands - which is really a big contrast to what I had and what i wanted 20 years ago...I also own an array of sports equipment and can surely afford the best of table tennis bats and after a tiresome day if I need something cool I just have to open my refrigerator door which has been
packed with unnecessary liquids in all forms

I work downtown and my good SUV takes care of me travelling in luxury - heated leather seats for the winter, auto climate control and Bose speakers to give me company when am driving solo. I now do my facial hair removal in the laziest way  possible by using a electric 100$ Philips razor and does it do any good than my dad's - your guess is as good as mine. Yes one thing has not changed I try to dress neat and now I have an array of watches to chose from too - my
grandpa if he was alive now needs to find a new kind of watch to gift if he were to excite me.

The fishing pastime has never changed and even now we go out fishing in Minnesota and I do have two fishing rods of great quality and we do buy the bait and have a night bobber to fish at night - what a transition but yeah we do catch bass and walleye apart from dozens of pan fish (which is the designated finger-fish now)

the question I ask to myself is and it comes to my middle-class mind multiple times is - can I live without most of these and the honest answer is YES i can ; the next question is did all the transition really create 'happiness' proportionately ??honestly the answer is a big NO !! I feel some of my RBCs have been converted to Blue Blood Corpuscles so the question is gentlemen - how blue is your blood ??

da Rite b@It......

To work , I usually carpool with two of my buddies who live in the same apartment complex. Every morning the chirping starts off to find who reaches on time and one of my best friends (ironically is the one who arrives late everyday) - challenged that - come 2012 he would never be late for our morning carpoolroll call ... three days he did stand by his word and further more surprise , this time from mother nature - it never rained or snowed ;-) the 4th day normalcy returns and my friend did go by his natural instinct - late again ...but this late is for '3 - 5 ' mins and also duly backedup by stories of last minute tag along requests from either of his two sweet kids.... which is quite understandable..what surprises me is the other 'lates', which unfortunately is a majority where there is no reason except the 'Indian Strechable Time' enforcement.. this is where I find myself in a little frenzy and very hard to shrug off my thoughts... So every time I get a new team , one of the statements I make is about being punctual and respecting one another's time..as time is not infinite as our brain wants us to think..its limited & add to it 'one life is all we got' statement - who wouldn't want to utilize it in a better way (that is why our judicial system invented prisons - the worst form of punishment - cutting our time the way others dictate ) ? and better of course depends on each persona's definition of it... Here comes the 'neck' where I am trying to attach the head and the body..thinking a little deep into the IST syndrome and even trying to justify that if not this may be we got multiple janmas/rebirths but unable to convice my mind - my thoughts wandered to the long queue in front of the US embassy for visa , these are the same Indian bodies with the same brains/thoughts standing in queue listening to the local guards meekly and above all "before time - everytime" - Rain or Shine !!! The same family of attentive, disciplined, punctual (not sure if this comes under being punctual as most of the times they are well ahead of the appointment time - if most of them were just punctual there won't be a long winding python Q in front of the embassy gate) >> The same family being totally immune to IST at the embassy gates and losing it after that moment - doesn't seem to be a logical sHiFt. Have seen many guys who take other's time for granted , make them wait - overbook others calendars at their mercy , not be on time consistently .. so who is to be blamed , it is not the system, it is not the mindset, .. it is just the bait .. so BAIT IT RIGHT ....hope this one is written short so that you are not late for your next page read....

Life Lesson#5

"LookOut vs OutLook : during situations ppl react diff, some get into a shell when they have to peep out and sometimes let their neck totally out when they have to just peep out , both not good for their outlook "

What A ShamE .......

"What a shame......." were the exact words Michi , told me when we were having a conversation and I had told her that I don't remember my Mom's bday....Then there was a barrage of words stringed into sentences which I could only standstill and hear ..was stripped naked by those words..
started with the 9 months wombtime, feeding ....and what not !!! This triggered an unusual thought process in me, we complain even when a small good activity of us is not recognized but I've never thought of recognizing the unconditional love - my parents have always been showering ! I have always tried to be nice but being nice is not enough - she is working almost 24x7 with no returns - her world revolves around my dad,sisters n me. I have got a big world to be happy , she just has this little world of hers to be happy !!

Got into a cursing mode thinking how selfish I've been in ignoring this simple fact of reciprocating - its better later than never.I had a good flashback of all my budding years and how she was supporting me invisibly from all angles - I couldn't hold back messaged my sister to find the date and then ordered a couple of stuff for her to be delivered on her birthday.. Hope she doesn't have a heart attack as I've never even wished her on her birthday ;-)

I've decided not to miss a call to her (she needs me to call her atleast once a week to answer the same questions - did you have your food, are you OK, how is your health etc and now I know why ;-). Now I feel lighter and happier,its not the promotions, the appraisals , the salary hike, the project successes that brings you real happiness - the real deal lies in small actions like these !!

Its better late than never.......Love u Mom - the only girl who loves you unconditionally from day0 of your life (courtesy Cata) !!!

Bar by the beach in UY serving Vadaiss ???

It all started when I was sitting and chatting with a friend of mine with a bottle of ice cold beer,on the deck of the life guard hut on the beach...She was just back from Mozambique and we started discussing all her experience - scuba diving, Night safari at the Kruger & I was telling her how jealous was I of her just coz of the amount of travelling, camping, adventures she has experienced............
I admire when people can follow their heart for a little while.. and she was flowing on and on with stories - that even I started to listen - which is rare from my side ;-) !!

We were thinking of 2do options in UY - Skydiving was deemed unsafe - also joked about people packing the chutes with a hot mate or burning cigarette and the chute having a hole when opened (at a height of 10000+ feet hmmm... ), No scope for bungee - you got to fly to Argentina or Brazil , no to SCUBA - they do it in a pool ahhhh,,,, and the one left was camping... I took the bait as always something is better than nothing.........& wanted to get out of my office framework for a while coz it was biting a bit into me ..

Plan etched to go camping to La Paloma - 3 hours by bus from Montevideo... One of her friends had rented a house and we could pitch a couple of tents by the garden of the home and a group would join us.

DAY0: Finished all my pending work at office and left a bit early to be at the bus station for the 3 hour comfy journey to La Paloma.Packed my Nikon D60 with all three lenses & had charged both my battery packs the night before. we reached La Paloma around 2315 or so .. and some calls from work had to be attended to but didnt play spoilsport - they managed to behave !! Seafood paella and some lamb for dinner at a nearby restaurant while we waiting for our friends Juan and Caro to pick us up - we were hauled into a Mitsubishi pickup = i liked the rustiness of the place and the people incl the pickup truck - like the ones in Texas and those from those hostel series movies ;-)
We got in and were double minded on whether to pitch the tent tonight or just make ourselves cozy in the hall of the wooden home .. not to miss the fun from day0, we started unpacking the tent and fixed it soon.. and were ready to dig ourselves into our sleeping bags...

DAY1:My biOclOck always disturbs me a little early than the normal standard, so couldn't resist waking my friends up at oh-eight-thirty.. some frowned some just said ..its a vacation day relaxxxxxx tranquiloooooooo.. hmmm !! But the sun in UY can sting your skin when it is directly above you , so its always better to wander in the beach before or after.Diappointment#1 came down here - I took my camera and wanted to click the sleepy faces but as i got a good angle and clicked - the most disappointing words flashed on the display "No memory card inserted" - in the haste had left the memory card in the laptop slot. Leaving the disappointment behind We all walked to the beach and it was not so crowded.. just the right kind.. families,, children making sand castles,, dogs playing fetch with their proud owners,,

Too many jellyfishes in the sea didnt deter us from swimming and then hitting the beach for a bit of tan (hahah dont laugh even our skin gets a bit darker .. should i call it black than tan). After a couple of trips to the sea , ended up on the wooden chairs at Juan's beach side bar - and had some cold Kaipirinhas with some Buñuelos de algas (deepfried sea algae in a little batter of flour and beer), fresh mussels boiled in salt and a bit of garlic with the shell - thought i wont like it but this was just soft and melted in the mouth !!

After a great lunch from the sea, decided to take a walk to downtown for a bit of grocery shopping.We were walking for hours, confused on our bearings (no we didn't smoke though).. if we had walked straight probably couldve crossed the boundaries of UY.But the walk had its own surprises - a good beach where the water was clearer with lesser population of Jelly fish - better to spend some more time at the sea, a bakery with tasty masitas and churros and then we moved ourselves to the fish shop - my eyeballs from end to end searching for crab ,, its been long since i had it ! But there was no crab, but the meat was available of the smaller variety called Cirri - ok whatever get it was my reaction ! We bought some fresh prawns and crab meat.Still we didnt know our way back and the sun was threatening to go down his blanket to sleep ! After about 5 or 6 calls to Caro and an hour more walk on the beach with some questions to strangers on the way - reached our tent lovely tent ! Indian food with rice, prawn curry and crab masala with wine - cant get better with the company being awesome.

DAY2: Read DAY1 one more time, as if it is put on writing it would be boring but believe me after a month of streching on work you can do the same thing again and again without getting bored and the same thing should be defined as - swimming, lying on the beach, drinking kaipirinhas and eating sea food from Juans bar .. lol
The only different thing we did today was - to get smarter and do the shopping with Caro in Juan-s pickup - veggies , prawn , wine and crab meat.This time the group was going to be about 10 - Caros and Juans friends wanted to taste some spicy food as they missed it (Most of them had worked in Indonesia).
Thank that someone who invented automobiles - reached our place early enough to prepare - fried rice with veggies, prawn masala even topped with coriander leaves and crab masala. For drinks there was Mango cocktail from chile which my friend presented and Wine from Argentina. We sat outside on a clear night with lots of talk and food - I could hear the whoooos and aahs from most of them , Juan was ranked#1 in accomodating spicy food ;-). We had the antidote of curd and pappad ready for those whoo-aaah sickness and it was well appreciated.Juan has forwarded an invite to me to cook Indian food (vada, prawn masala etc) at his bar.A nice day ended nice.

DAY3: you know the start ... now !! The different thing is we visited the the "youngster" beach at La pedrera about 20 - 30 mins from La paloma. I loved the countryside ride on top of a pickup. The houses are different the scenery is different.Too much visible energy on the beach.
A bit of souvenir hunting and then back to the bus base for our return back to Montevideo and Monotony (a different kind which i dont like)

Next Action Item: A Weekend camping but as an employee of Juan at his lovely wooden rustic bar by the beachside , not only sipping free kaipirinhas & munching on sea food but also cooking some Indian spicy food for sale - awesome a part of my dream come true - owning a restaurant starts in the kitchen !! I am all for it .............and being employee of Juan for a weekend means free surfing classes !!!

Crashed by Car & Washed by Wits .........

This working week ended on a great note with a meeting with the ex-CEO and current vice chairman of my company. He was on a tour to south america , and was a lucky to share a meeting table with him. It was a great eye opener for many of us.. and helped us put a different perspective to what we do...

Then there was a "cant say NO " invite from a group of friends to a place called El Pinar - the goodies on offer were a great home by the beach, lots of music, BBQ , the twin W's - wine & Whisky, and great beautiful friends to chat off the night...

Was so thrilled to get off to a beach home with a energetic group as this NY eve was spent alone by the beach lying half in water and half in sand.. watching the firework lit sky ....

2230 my friend picked me up from my home and then as my lovely jinx always does wonders - the car goes dead !! We tried almost everything common sense (the little we have) ordered us to -- I now remembered my Dad's words during my university years when I was trying to graduate in Mechanical Engineering : " Try to be a real engineer not a one on paper" -
I think I couldn't keep his word on this, apart from many others of course ....

By the time we needed some drinks 4 thought and the first W to speed into our throats was the 12 years old Walker. Then the 4 of us had a crazy idea of why not spend the night at the beach in carrassco... LOL we were laughing at the idea but the sleeping bags.. and the right rocky place we scouted in a bit ensured a 100% participation !!!

The wind the rhythm of the sea, little guitar tunes from Juan kept us going the whole night - did I miss Luci's songs ??? We should have slept about 2 - 2.5 hours , then the early morning sun , the waves and the birds woke us up !! It was awesome just like the one I spent on a catamaran back in india - but this one was on the rocks rather than in the Sea ! the effect on the crazy meter is the same .. believe me or not ....

How could we resist an early morning dip if the stay place offered a very large pool with depth varying from an inch to a few 1000 meters ,moderate temperature, no lanes, no time or space restrictions ;-) ? We all swam in the morning water for sometime .. wiping off all the sand that had made love to us the night ....

Returned to my home around midday , with a smile cut across my face thinking of the last 10 or so hours ... life has its twists and turns...its easy to accept and improvize than to resist and ruin !!!