Harshavardhan Jegadeesan's

My food binge in Bangalore's old and famous eat outs!

Written by Harsh Jegadeesan on 12:16 PM

After visiting every new restaurant in town, burning oodles of money on marked up (not necessarily good) food and guinea pigging for resta-experimenters (restaurants which experiment on paying public with their versions of global cuisine, read World Cuisine Network), this Saturday we decided to head out to traditional old Bangalore eat outs. I joined my wife and 6 of her colleagues to spend the whole day binging on traditional food in old Bangalore.

We started our day with the traditional "Bengaluru Masala Dosa" in Vidyarthi Bhavan in Gandhi Bazaar, arguably the best dosa in the world according to die-hard dosa fans. They have been in existence since 1943 and churn out thousands of dosas all day long. Because we were on a food binge and I did not know what was coming next - I wanted to try everything on the menu, including the hot water.

What followed next was plain dosa, karabath, kesaribath, idly vada, poori sagu, coffee/tea and hot water in that order. I must admit that except for the masala dosa, no other dish deserved the hype. Having said that, I'd go there just for the masala dosa :) The best part about the whole place was - it just costed us ~400 bucks for 8 of us for breakfast, can you believe that!

It was already 11.30 AM by the time we finished and I was assuming all the while that we were having a 'brunch', till reality hit me. I was told that we have to head out fast to MTR (Mavalli Tiffin Room) because we had a lunch 'appointment' at 2.00 PM.

Hang on!, did you say lunch? Suddenly I had self doubts, this would not have been quite a shocker a few years ago when I was a lot younger; now with age and years of eating at home I was not sure if my intestinal flora was ready to handle this :) But I knew I had to bring my years of experience into play here; really trust my abilities and go out there and carry on!

Just to relax ourselves before the next playoff, we took a stroll in a beautiful park in Basavanagudi, we visited the Bull Temple to see the monolith statue of Nandi Bull. According to the local legends, the bull is growing in size every year. We had a refreshing tender coconut before we headed out to lunch. Will I be able to do this?

Lunch at MTR is a completely filling affair. MTR has a great legacy - started it 1924, they have had Chief Ministers waiting in long queues to eat there. Even today, even if you have a reservation, you will have to wait at least an hour in the waiting rooms to get inside. Following the tradition, we waited in the long and noisy queue for our turn. Our turn finally came after a 1/2 hour wait. Honestly I had to really struggle through every course of the meal, but I really enjoyed the food thoroughly. By the time we came out, my stomach was just about to explode. We all had to take a walk and maybe follow it up with a nice nap. With great difficulty we walked across the road to Lal Bagh. The 240-acre garden is a treat to the eyes in a traffic-clogged Bangalore, where the green patches are rapidly being replaced by concrete jungles. We had a short walk and found the shade of a big banyan tree hard to resist, we all settled down to have a nap in the shade. After a power nap we were ready for the evening.

Our goal was to eat something 'lite' in the evening. Our destination was the Food Street - a road full of eateries in V.V. Puram. Each eatery is a specialized joint for certain items. For example, the dosa shop we went just sold ghee masala dosa. After binging on a variety of foods - dosa, idly, vada pav and 'obbattu', I was done for the day. My stomach could not stomach any more food. As we walked to the end of the road, we reached V B Bakery - again a old Bangalore food joint which has been doing yeoman service to foodies like me for decades. I had to pay due respects to such a revered food joint. I ate a bun butter jam and bought the traditional rusks and left the food street promising to come back soon!

That was it! I vowed to my stomach that I will completely rest it the next day. Finally we headed home after a whole day of traditional food in Bangalore's old and famous food joint. More than us, our li'l one got to savor Bangalore's best from inside momie's stomach :)