Convicts run restaurant

Just imagine when you go to a restaurant to have lunch or dinner, the smiling waiter who takes your order is actually a convicted murderer or a rapist serving a long prison term. But nothing to worry these waiters attached to Tihar Food Court are extremely polite as well as friendly.

Tihar Food Court in west Delhi, a rehabilitation effort nicked off by the Tihar Prison, opened recently on an experimental basis, while awaiting formal clearance. It is sited half a kilometre away from the prisoners' dormitories.

With a spacious interior lined with wooden tables and walls adorned with paintings done by prisoners, the 50-seat restaurant has been praised for the polite behaviour of its employees, who were trained by a prestigious nearby hotel management school.

"The food is average," said banker Gaurav Gupta who sat down for lunch at this new air-conditioned restaurant... "But the hygiene factor is really good, very clean.

And it's a good thing they are employing prisoners," he added. Restaurant manager Mohammad Asim said there are around 50 customers every day, with each worker paid 74 rupees for the day's work.

The vegetarian menu features mostly northern Indian food items, such as samosas, or deep-fried pastry triangles stuffed with spiced potato, and kidney beans with rice.

The deluxe thali is the priciest item, costing 150 rupees, while samosas are among the cheapest, at 10 rupees. "Those who come once to have our food come back again," said Asim, who has spent 14-1/2 years in jail for murder.

To be eligible to leave prison for a few hours of work at the restaurant, inmates must have a high school education and need to have maintained an 'unblemished' record for at least 12 years. They mostly pick prisoners who are due to be released within two years time, so they don't feel too tempted to escape.

The inmates walk or ride a cycle to work everyday completely unsupervised, as the authorities apparently trust them enough not to provide an escort.Earlier this year, the selected inmates were put through a special course designed by the Delhi Institute of Hotel Management.

The course trained prisoners on various aspects such as cooking and housekeeping.

The program also included a job recruitment fare for the inmates who were about to leave prison for good.

Those who work at Tihar Food Court are now paid 74 rupees ($1.2) a day.

Once notorious for corruption, drug problems and prisoner abuse, the Tihar jail complex has ushered in several reforms, with vocational training and painting featured among the rehabilitation programs offered to its 13,552 inmates.

"The restaurant was set up to give employment to the inmates and project the positive aspects of prison work to the public," said spokesperson Gupta. A similar experiment has run for more than two years in the southern state of Kerala, where prison inmates dish up food sold at a counter near the jail, or distributed by mobile vans.

Ice cream changes colour when it melts

When a physicist tries his hand at cooking you won't know what kind of result it would turn out to be.

This is exactly what happened when Manuel Linares, a 37-year-old Spanish physicist decides to become a cook, and has created a new ice cream called "Xamaeon" which signifies changing of colours bya chameleon.

A chameleon changes colours to suit the place where it staysfor security reasons. Linares' "Xamaleon" ice cream too changes its colour when it melts.

The ice cream supposedly turns from blue to purple as it starts to melt.

While attending a course in ice cream making at the Hotel Business School Hoffman in Barcelona where students were encouraged to create a new flavour of ice cream, Linares declared that his ice cream would be able to change colour.

This made everyone including his tutor to make fun of him. But Linares didn't take it lying low, he managed to convince them he wasn't joking.

And he created "Xamaleon" in Catalan - a special ice cream that changes blue to purple when it melts.

"Everyone laughed, but as a physicist I know that there are various possibilities that might work and I was delighted when I managed to crack it and create an ice cream that changes colour," he said.

"It was important to me to make sure I only used natural ingredients, so it took a bit longer."

According to Manuel, Xamaleon is made with strawberries, cocoa, almonds, banana, pistachio, vanilla and caramel, and it tastes like tutti-frutti.

He also revealed that the ice cream has become incredibly popular and is selling quite well at the ice cream parlor he runs in the town of Calella de Mar, Barcelona.

But he won't divulge his recipe just yet: "I am not giving out too much detail because the patents are still going through," he said.

He did reveal his source of inspiration, though: "I am a huge fan of the British ice cream genius Charlie Francis, the creator of a fluorescent ice and founder of the company Lick Me Delicious, and I wanted to create an ice cream that changed colour to try and do something new as well." Manuel had studied engineering and physics at university, and worked as a professor before he decided to pursue his passion for cooking.

He now hopes to expand his business outside of Spain. Well, if his ice cream tastes as amazing as it looks, I'm sure that he'll be able to reach his goal very soon.

Handsome male model is actually a she

Is this a male or a female? When you see these photographs you are sure that the person here is a male but this 23-year-old Yachen Xing, who is a popular male model with sulky, school-boyish looks and striking features is actually a male. Yachen's story has turned into a hot topic on Weibo, China's version of the twitter, for being a girl with a highly successful career in male modelling.

Dressed in male clothing Yachen is studying animation at the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University & School of Arts. She is 173 centimetres tall (that's 5 foot 7 inches), and her frame is best described as 'lanky'.

She is a representative of her school's women's basketball team. Her suave, model-like appearance seems to have helped her get started with modelling as well.

Chinese internet sites have dubbed Yachen the 'most handsome girl-hunk in history'. She has a large female fan-following; many of them regard her as their Prince Charming.

Too bad she's not single. Yachen has a girlfriend - also very good looking.