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Wednesday 25 October 2017

Macchiato, Ghatkopar West : Food Review, Zomato

 
Nice place with some really good food,
Situated a bit secluded,not prominent so not many people might know about it,
Ambiance is dark yet cool and young, can be improved and made swankier,
Has outdoor seating too,
Plays matches on big screen TV and plays cool pop/rock tracks,
Food is a bit on pricey end but quality and quantity both is very good,
Was here with daughter and we went for meal,
One meal is actually good enough for 2 people-where we chose an appetizer, main course, soup,pizza/pasta-really good for just about 700 rupees,
In the beginning they said that 2 people cannot share one meal,
But my daughter is really light eater so we finally convinced them to let us share,
and we ordered an extra soup,Minestrone soup was amazing,
In appetizer MUST HAVE Grilled potatoes in barbeque sauce,
In pizza roasted cottage cheese with garlic was THE BOMB!
And in main course we loved Herb crusted cottage cheese with pepper sauce served on herbed rice with grilled veggies-This alone is enough for 2 hungry people!
I suggest definitely go here for the meal option and enjoy and must have their pizzas too!

Monday 16 October 2017

Selling old gadgets - A horror story before #CleanUpCashOut convenience!

Our whole world revolves around gadgets and when these gadgets get old, we feel the same sense of loss as if we lost a family member. But we cannot let our home become a graveyard for them. So we try and sell them off or maybe even give it to someone in need for free. My daughter bought her first desktop in 2005. It was quite advanced at that point, with genuine Microsoft XP operating system and included accessories such as lovely headsets, pair of booming speakers as well as a HP printer. Since she was a management student, it served her really well for making projects, doing research work, making presentations and so on. Slowly, the rest of family also gravitated towards using the desktop. We even named it Pintu! Pintu was used for gaming purposes by my younger son, for checking accounting spreadsheets by my husband and I learned how to search for different global recipes as well as find hilarious cat videos on Youtube that remain my favorite pastime on internet till date!

Of course, with passage of time, Pintu became slow and haggard. First, it used to take an inordinate amount of time in starting up every single time. Then, it started randomly shutting down when we would open any web page that was heavy with graphics. Then one day my daughter spotted the dreaded blue screen of death across the monitor and with a heavy heart told us that it was time we bid it goodbye. It was the year 2011 and Pintu had already been a part of our family in the most fulfilling way so we decided to move on to swanky laptops and sell it off to someone else. Afterall, it just needed a couple of sprucing up of RAM (so my daughter said) and a new anti-virus, and some software updates and it would be good as new. The printer, headsets and speakers were working like a charm and would continue to do so for another 2-3 years,my daughter was confident of that. She had bought it for a grand sum of 35,000 Rupees and by now we could get a brand new fast laptop in the same amount. So we decided to sell it off somewhere around 8000-10,000 Rupees.

My daughter spread the word among her office friends, my son did the same in his college and we printed out some flyers to put up in our apartment foyer. In about a fortnight's time, we got 5 inquiries. We shortlisted 2 of them as genuine, both came in via my son's college friends. One of them was a young man who was just setting up his house and family in Mumbai and wanted something cheap for basic office work within Rs. 5000 while other was a businessman from Navi Mumbai who wanted something basic for his business accounting work in Rs. 10,000. My daughter spoke to both men and explained the features of Pintu and finally we decided to sell it to the businessman in Navi Mumbai.

He lived far off from our residence and was not willing to come and pick it up, however he said that he would reimburse the travel costs, so my daughter and I loaded Pintu in our family car and drove to his business place. After nearly 2 hours of traveling, we reached our destination, only to wait in our car in the sweltering heat for another hour before he came to meet us. He had scheduled a meeting at the same time he had given to us! Anyway, the transaction was smooth thereafter and he paid the promised amount in cash. We came home happy that our first ever old-gadgets-selling transaction was so trouble free.

Oh,but we spoke too soon! 3 days later, my daughter received a 'friendly' good-morning message from the gentleman. She ignored it and the same thing happened 2 days later, this time coupled with a forwarded joke. A week later, the gentleman called up my daughter 'just to be friendly and generally to converse with'. Turns out, what was a pure business transaction for us, he thought of it as an opportunity to make a 'new friend'. Of course, my daughter, being used to many such 'friendly' advances on her facebook page, immediately shut it down by asking him to not bother her again. And thankfully, the gentleman really listened to her and never bothered us again. But it also made us wonder about a lot of things that could actually go wrong in such transactions with stark strangers. This world is a scary, confusing place.

That's why I am so pleased that a friend of mine has shown me the Cashify website where selling used gadgets is a breeze with them instantly giving the sell price, arranging a pick up of the item and paying at our doorstep in cash. No more hassles or dealing with strangers. All this convenience comes at a portal with reputed partners such as Amazon! In this digital age, this is indeed the smartest way to get rid of old gadgets in our homes. Do try it out friends and using coupon CLEANCASH will get you an additional 250 Rupees for you when you sell your gadget here. No more horror stories, only #CleanUpCashOut convenience now on!