The Name Game!

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Ah, Shakespeare! You gotta love him! He really summed it up in this line from Romeo and Juliet!

So, why am I quoting Shakespeare? Because AB&R Plumbing is changing to Splash Plumbing!

It's only a name change, though. We still have the same great people, the same excellent service, the same affordable prices. We still offer 24-hour a day service to all of Orange County, CA.

So why did we change our name? AB&R Plumbing stands for Advanced Backflow & Rooting Plumbing. It's long and cumbersome, and it makes people focus on the backflow and rooting part, instead of the plumbing.

With Splash Plumbing, you'll think of plumbing - ALL plumbing - not just one or two things we do, it's a little more catchy, it looks better on our trucks, you'll be able to remember our toll-free number more easily (I can't even remember the one for AB&R!!).

C'mon, if you see a big white truck roll by, with Splash Plumbing on it, and it says
888-HEY-SPLASH

aren't you going to remember that?

And giving someone my e-mail address was terrible with AB&R...
"It's A-B, then spell the word "and", a-n-d, then R, Plumbing, dot com".

Now, with Splash Plumbing, it's, "at Splash Plumb dot com." Easy!

We're still making changes, so the website and this blog will say AB&R for awhile. Soon, though, it will be Splash Plumbing all the way! (And, if you go to http://www.splashplumbing.com/, it will take you to the AB&R website, until we change it!)

So AB&R Plumbing is now Splash Plumbing. Same great people and services, just the name has changed.

Noritz vs. Navien

Hey …. It’s “Dan the Plumber” blogging again!

Here at Splash Plumbing, you know we are fans of Noritz tankless water heaters, and have installed many of their models in Orange County cities like Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, and Costa Mesa.

Splash Plumbing is a full service “affordable plumbing” company, and we pride ourselves on keeping up to date on plumbing technology, especially when it comes to tankless water heaters. But, when I received a phone call from a potential client in Laguna Beach, asking for a Navien Tankless Water Heater, I was stumped. I never heard of them... how embarrassing is that?

Here I thought we were one of Orange County's best tankless water heater installers and I did not even know of this manufacturer… What a shot to my ego!

As I spoke with the caller, I explained that we only install Noritz Tankless water heaters and while I was doing so, I looked up Navien Tankless Water Heaters on the internet. Indeed, I did find them at http://www.navienamerica.com/, and thought I could surf their website while talking to the caller… at least that is what I thought (with good intentions).

It literally took 3 minutes to load their HOME PAGE! What do you think I was doing while the remainder of their site was loading? Yeah that’s right, I opened a new tab on my browser and went straight to http://www.noritz.com/ and directed MY NEW CLIENT to do so as well.

The Noritz website loaded in 3.5 seconds, I was able to show my client the model I had picked out for her Laguna Beach home, and an agreement was made!

Well the deal was made, Splash Plumbing has a new client, and there is another Noritz tankless water heater installed in Laguna Beach. Whatever happened to http://www.navienamerica.com/ you ask? Honestly, their website did not fully load and from what I saw, I was not impressed.

Here are the primary reasons why we select Noritz Tankless Water Heaters for all of our clients in Orange County:

- HUGE selection
- Versatile installation
- Availability
- Stainless Steel tankless water heaters
- Direct contact to our manufacturer
- Outstanding customer support
- Gi-nor-mous (yes… it’s a word) showroom for our clients to visit!
- Fast, clean and informative website

There you have it. As far as we are concerned, Navien Tankless Water Heaters still seems to have a lot of work to do in comparison to Noritz Tankless Water Heaters … but then again, that’s only my opinion.

Oh, how is my personal Noritz Tankless Water Heater, that I installed in my Mission Viejo home working? With 4 women in my house, I still have lots of hot water!

Aapam - A Kerala Delicacy

The soft,spongy dosa which is slightly thick in the centre and lacy edges is truly an irresistable breakfast dish. Yes, I am talking about aapam, which is a very common breakfast of Keralites apart from puttu. The popular combo is Aapam and Potato stew or Kadala curry. Both the sides tastes awesome with aapam. In Tamilnadu, coconutmilk is usually served as a side which is also a good match for the soft aapam. There are umpteen recipes which guarantee you the best aapam. My recipe is a simple straight forward one, which I have adapted from my Amma. I have eliminated an additional step which Amma follows. Amma uses only raw rice and coconut for grinding. Then she will prepare a thick , but free flowing paste out of a tablespoon of batter mixed with 1 cup of water. The cooked batter paste is then mixed to the batter and left to ferment.  This is to get soft aapam. I omit that step and instead add a handful of urad dal while grinding.

To prepare aapam, you need that special pan to get the perfect shape for aapam - with a dome in the centre and lacy edges.  Now a days you get the non-stick aapam pans which makes aapam preparation a breeze. Earlier, amma used to use the deep kadai for this and had to struggle lifting the appam from kadai. If you don't have an appam pan, you make it on regular dosa tawa. You don't get the shape. But cover and cook only one side.

You need

Raw rice - 2 cups

Split urad dal  - handful

Grated coconut - from half of a coconut

Salt to taste

Cooking soda - 1/4 tspn

Method

Wash and soak rice and urad dal together for 5 hours or overnight. Grind together rice, urad dal and grated coconut till smooth. Add salt and leave to ferment for 6 hours. The batter consistency should be thinner than dosa batter. Add cooking soda and leave it for 10 minutes for the soda to act.  If you are not using the whole batch, divide the batter before you add soda. This way you will have fresh batter to start with the next day. With soda added batter, I feel you don't get the same result the next day.

Keep the aapam pan on the stove and smear little oil on the pan. Take a ladle of the batter and pour, starting from the outer edge to the centre of the pan. Hold the handles of the pan and give a gentle swirl so that some batter from the edges will flow down to the centre. This method will leave only a thin layer of the batter at the edge which will turn crisp on cooking. Cover with a lid and cook for 2 minutes on moderate heat. If you like a crisp exterior, you can conitnue to cook for few more seconds for it turn brown else remove.

I served with the chettinad tomato chutney which went very well with aapam.

Aapam is regular for breakfast at home and I have been thinking of posting this for a while. But will forget to click the picture everytime. My R.Manni (co-sister) has been asking for this recipe, for quite a long time and fianlly a mail from my reader prompted me to do the post at the earliest.