American CEO Bret Mueller digs into North Karnataka's Jolada Rotti meal in Bengaluru, calls it 'wholesome and healthy'
Also Read - Vietjet plans daily flights between Bengaluru and Ho Chi Minh amid soaring demand
Take a look at the video
In the video, Mueller, visibly delighted, praises the variety and freshness of the meal. 'I first came here in 2014 on the recommendation of my chartered accountant. I was new to the city back then. The experience stuck with me,' he recalls. Describing the meal, he says, 'This plate is full of fresh vegetables, crispy salads, and vibrant flavors. The butter melting over the Jowar rotti is incredible, especially when paired with the eggplant curry.'
For someone who built his business around burritos and bowls, Mueller has developed a soft corner for North Karnataka cuisine. He revealed that he makes a special trip to Basavanagudi two to three times a year just to indulge in the Jolada Rotti meals. 'There are several places across Bengaluru serving similar food, but this one hits differently. It's the best,' he said, adding with a laugh, 'After eating a meal like this, hitting the gym is out of the question.'
Also Read - Karnataka woman kills her brother to avoid 'family shame' after he tested positive for HIV
He also pointed out the generous and refreshing servings of buttermilk that accompany the thali. 'We don't usually get this kind of variety in thalis, especially this many vegetables. It's healthy, filling, and flavorful,' he noted.
While he enjoys the food, Mueller isn't as thrilled with Bengaluru's notorious traffic. 'These days, I prefer taking autos to get around faster,' he said candidly.
Mueller moved to Bengaluru in 2012 at the age of 22 and opened the first California Burrito outlet in the city. Over the years, the Mexican fast-casual brand has grown steadily and now boasts over 100 outlets across India, raking in $23 million in revenue last year, according to a CNBC report.
Like many businesses, California Burrito faced severe setbacks during the pandemic, shutting down 19 of its 37 stores. But the brand made a strong comeback. In 2021, it launched a bold ₹100 menu campaign, promoted by influencers, which proved to be a massive success and drove a surge in footfall. The chain recently celebrated the opening of its 100th store.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NDTV
2 hours ago
- NDTV
Trump's Tariffs Leave A Lot Of Losers. But Even Winners Will Pay A Price
President Donald Trump's tariff onslaught this week left a lot of losers - from small, poor countries like Laos and Algeria to wealthy US trading partners like Canada and Switzerland. They're now facing especially hefty taxes - tariffs - on the products they export to the United States starting Aug 7. The closest thing to winners may be the countries that caved to Trump's demands - and avoided even more pain. But it's unclear whether anyone will be able to claim victory in the long run, even the United States, the intended beneficiary of Trump's protectionist policies. "In many respects, everybody's a loser here,'' said Barry Appleton, co-director of the Center for International Law at the New York Law School. Barely six months after he returned to the White House, Trump has demolished the old global economic order. Gone is one built on agreed-upon rules. In its place is a system in which Trump himself sets the rules, using America's enormous economic power to punish countries that won't agree to one-sided trade deals and extracting huge concessions from the ones that do. "The biggest winner is Trump," said Alan Wolff, a former US trade official and deputy director-general at the World Trade Organization. "He bet that he could get other countries to the table on the basis of threats, and he succeeded - dramatically.'' Everything goes back to what Trump calls "Liberation Day'' - April 2 - when the president announced "reciprocal'' taxes of up to 50% on imports from countries with which the United States ran trade deficits and 10% "baseline'' taxes on almost everyone else. He invoked a 1977 law to declare the trade deficit a national emergency that justified his sweeping import taxes. That allowed him to bypass Congress, which traditionally has had authority over taxes, including tariffs, all of which are now being challenged in court. Trump retreated temporarily after his Liberation Day announcement triggered a rout in financial markets and suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate. Eventually, some of them did, caving to Trump's demands to pay what four months ago would have seemed unthinkably high tariffs for the privilege of continuing to sell into the vast American market. The United Kingdom agreed to 10% tariffs on its exports to the United States, up from 1.3% before Trump amped up his trade war with the world. The US demanded concessions even though it had run a trade surplus, not a deficit, with the UK for 19 straight years. The European Union and Japan accepted US tariffs of 15%. Those are much higher than the low single-digit rates they paid last year, but lower than the tariffs he was threatening (30% on the EU and 25% on Japan). Also, cutting deals with Trump and agreeing to hefty tariffs were Pakistan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. Even countries that saw their tariffs lowered from April without reaching a deal are still paying much higher tariffs than before Trump took office. Angola's tariff, for instance, dropped to 15% from 32% in April, but in 2022 it was less than 1.5%. And while the Trump administration cut Taiwan's tariff to 20% from 32% in April, the pain will still be felt. "20% from the beginning has not been our goal, we hope that in further negotiations we will get a more beneficial and more reasonable tax rate," Taiwan's president Lai Ching-te told reporters in Taipei Friday. Trump also agreed to reduce the tariff on the tiny southern African kingdom of Lesotho to 15% from the 50% he'd announced in April, but the damage may already have been done there. Countries that didn't knuckle under - and those that found other ways to incur Trump's wrath - got hit harder. Even some of the poor were not spared. Laos' annual economic output comes to $2,100 per person and Algeria's $5,600, versus America's $75,000. Nonetheless, Laos got rocked with a 40% tariff and Algeria with a 30% levy. Trump slammed Brazil with a 50% import tax largely because he didn't like the way it was treating former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for trying to overturn his electoral defeat in 2022. Never mind that the US has exported more to Brazil than it's imported every year since 2007. Trump's decision to plaster a 35% tariff on longstanding US ally Canada was partly designed to threaten Ottawa for saying it would recognize a Palestinian state. Trump is a staunch supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Switzerland was clobbered with a 39% import tax, even higher than the 31% Trump originally announced on April 2. "The Swiss probably wish that they had camped in Washington'' to make a deal, said Wolff, now senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "They're clearly not at all happy.'' Fortunes may change if Trump's tariffs are upended in court. Five American businesses and 12 states are suing the president, arguing that his Liberation Day tariffs exceeded his authority under the 1977 law. In May, the US Court of International Trade, a specialized court in New York, agreed and blocked the tariffs, although the government was allowed to continue collecting them while its appeal wound its way through the legal system, and may likely end up at the US Supreme Court. In a hearing on Thursday, the judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sounded sceptical about Trump's justifications for the tariffs. "If (the tariffs) get struck down, then maybe Brazil's a winner and not a loser,'' Appleton said. Trump portrays his tariffs as a tax on foreign countries. But they are paid by import companies in the US who try to pass along the cost to their customers via higher prices. True, tariffs can hurt other countries by forcing their exporters to cut prices and sacrifice profits, or risk losing market share in the United States. But economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that overseas exporters have absorbed just one-fifth of the rising costs from tariffs, while Americans and US businesses have picked up the most of the tab. Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Ford, Best Buy, Adidas, Nike, Mattel and Stanley Black & Decker have all hiked prices due to US tariffs "This is a consumption tax, so it disproportionately affects those who have lower incomes,'' Appleton said. "Sneakers, knapsacks ... your appliances are going to go up. Your TV and electronics are going to go up. Your video game devices, consoles, are going to go up because none of those are made in America.'' Trump's trade war has pushed the average US tariff from 2.5% at the start of 2025 to 18.3% now, the highest since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. And that will impose a $2,400 cost on the average household, the lab estimates. "The US consumer's a big loser, Wolff said.
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
After a lag, US consumers begin to feel tariff pinch
. Many businesses chose to absorb the additional tax during the early days of President Donald Trump's trade war. But evidence is emerging that they are running out of options to keep prices stable in the face of deteriorating profit margins, suggesting that the tariffs could have a more pronounced effect on prices in the months ahead. US govt data, including from the commerce department this past week, shows that prices rose in June on items heavily exposed to tariffs, such as home furnishings, toys and appliances. And in recent days - before Trump announced tariffs for much of the world Thursday night - Adidas, Procter & Gamble, Stanley Black & Decker and other large corporations told investors that they either had increased prices or planned to do so soon to offset the tariff costs. Companies like Walmart and toymakers Hasbro and Mattel had already warned that tariffs would lead to higher prices. "We have no interest in running a lower-margin business, particularly due to tariffs," Richard Westenberger, the chief financial officer of Carter's, a children's apparel maker, said on a call with analysts July 25. Sarah House, an economist at Wells Fargo, said the next three to six months would be "crunchtime," as more tariff rates solidified. Trump and his advisers have maintained that foreign countries will eat the tariffs. But so far, while there are some signs that the exporters are swallowing the additional cost, most of it is being passed on to American importers, according to department of labour data on import prices.
Economic Times
4 hours ago
- Economic Times
Taiwan to face economic risk as US mulls semiconductor tariffs under Trump proposal: Think tank
ANI Taiwan is bracing for a significant economic challenge as US President Donald Trump threatens to impose a tariff on semiconductors, according to the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER), reported by Focus industry is central to the island's exports and overall economy. Information and communication technology (ICT) products account for over 70% of Taipei's exports to the United States, according to the CIER. CIER President Lien Hsien-ming told CNA on Friday that Taiwan's dependence on semiconductors is notably higher than that of other countries. "He said compared with other countries, the semiconductor industry carries a heavier weighting for Taiwan in terms of industrial and economic development. In 2024, Taiwan recorded a trade surplus of $73.9 billion with the United States, up from $47.8 billion in 2023, largely driven by strong American demand for AI servers and semiconductors during the ongoing artificial intelligence boom. "I think Trump really cares about a trade deficit resulting from purchases of high tech gadgets such as semiconductors," Lien said, referring to a US investigation launched in April under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, targeting ICT products--especially semiconductors--as part of a possible new tariff regime."As ICT products make up more than 70 percent of Taiwan's exports to the US, a tariff on semiconductors could have a bigger impact on Taiwan's economy than the 20 percent blanket tariff the White House announced Thursday," Lien newly announced blanket tariff rate was lowered from 32%, previously suggested by Trump on April response, President Lai Ching-te said the 20% tariff was provisional and that Taiwan would continue negotiations with the US to secure a lower rate. Taiwan's negotiating team will also address the semiconductor issue directly with their American counterparts. Lai's statements reflect a growing focus within the Taiwanese government on the potential threat posed by a targeted semiconductor tariff."Lai's remarks show the government is focused on a possible tariff on semiconductors as such a levy could threaten Taiwan's economy," Lien said, according to the Focus Vice President Chen Shin-horng echoed Lien's concerns, saying that based on current US negotiation tactics, targeted tariffs on specific industries like semiconductors are likely to be steeper than general blanket added that Trump appears to be leveraging Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act as a strategic tool to push for major foreign investments in the the US may be aware that foreign chipmakers are unlikely to launch new production facilities in the short term, tariffs could still be phased in gradually.A tariff under the clause could be set at a lower level at the beginning and gradually increased over the next two to three years, Chen Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), currently investing $65 billion in Arizona with an additional $100 billion pledged, has already warned the US government that proposed tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could significantly undermine demand and disrupt its investment strategy."New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona's significant investment plan in Phoenix," the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce in May, according to the Focus Taiwan. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in late July that results of the ongoing investigation will be announced within two weeks, ahead of any final decision on semiconductor tariffs. Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. Jane St: How an options trader smelt a rat when others raised a toast TCS job cuts may not stop at 12,000; its bench policy threatens more Unlisted dreams, listed disappointments? NSDL's IPO leaves pre-IPO investors riled. Regulators promote exchanges; can they stifle one? Watch IEX Did Meesho's Valmo really deliver a knockout punch to e-commerce logistics? Sebi's settlement with market intermediaries: More mystery than transparency? Trump tantrum: Check the Indian pulse of your portfolio. 71 stocks from 5 sectors for whom Trump may not even be noise F&O Radar| Deploy Short Strangle in Nifty to gain from Theta decay Stock Radar: PI Industries stock showing signs of momentum; takes support above 50-DEMA – time to buy?
