Breakfast Time in India

This post has been due for a long time now, took sometime to comprehend my thoughts .. 🙂

June-July is vacation time yeahhh!!. Kids had summer break, off to Bangalore, India. Bangalore is my home town, was very serene traffic free road filled with restaurants, small eateries aka darshini’s, and beautiful parks. It was known as the “Garden city”, don’t think anymore we can call it so.. Darshini are very casual fast-food cafe/eateries where there is not much seating available. People typically tend to grab a quick meal and stand around small tables sharing the table with unknown people. It is actually a great place to start networking.

In the past several years things have changed due to the software industry boom, many folks from different parts of India have migrated here to work at the software giants. Traffic has quadrupled err don’t have the exact number for that, streets seem crowded as every house own a car per family member and there is no parking space inside their garage for that. Hence cars are parked on the street side. The street I used to play in hardly has room to walk :(.. But whatever it is I love the place… Always happy to go back home..:)

Food is one of the best things in India. There are so many options from small fast-food places to fancy resturants. Had read a lot about all the interesting and best places to eat, hence decided to try them out. Every morning me and my husband took long walks and on our way back treated ourselves with the super soft idli served with tasty watery chutney, set dosa with saagu, crispy buttery masala dosas and much more in the darshini’s around the area I lived. Capturing my memories about visiting the new found and also the old classic spots.. Every darshini had great tasting food..

SLV ragigudda: has the best tasting saagu and set dosa apart from the regular favs like idly and masala dosa..

Brahmin Tiffins and Coffee: this place was a new find for me, located on a busy street with some great tasting food. This place serves only idli and upma in the weekends. Week days they have dosas too, but we missed the dosas, as we went there on a weekend :(..

Vasudev Adigas: old time fav located in the bustling cross street of Jayanagar 3rd block where there are many small offices. The street here is always packed with 2 wheelers and auto rickshaws anytime of the day. This place has a small self service wing on the ground floor and on the first floor there is nice seating area with tables. We had delicious rave idly with coconut chutney and peas pulao without raita.

MTR JP Nagar: This is a branch of the famous MTR in lalbagh area. This place opens early around 7 am. We reached there around 7:45 and there were few people already eating there. Most of them knew the waiter very well they were having a conversation with him as if they were all friends. The speciality at this place was the ghee served in a small cup, that melts due to the heat of the dosa/idly.

Taaza thindi Jayanagar: Another new find in the Jayanagar area. Amazing cleanliness in this cafe. Floors were very clean, so were the seating areas. Was amazed to see the open kitchen, batter fermenting machine enclosed in a glass chamber, storeroom for grains and veggies. This cafe is GREEN, in order to takeout food the customers need to bring their own boxes. Everything is served in steel plates and steel glasses. The hand washing stations were very hygienic. There were huge dishwashers where the dishes were cleaned and sterilized before used for serving. There was a also a separate chutney serving station. Chutney station had 2 kinds of chutney one was watery which was served for idly and vada, another slightly less watery one was served for dosa :). Great ambience, great service. Over all had a great experience eating in the local cafe and loved the taste of the dosa and idly. Not to forget the filter kappi (coffee), it was piping hot, frothy and tasted out of this world..

By 2 coffee: My brother’s fav spot, has become our fav too. Make it a point to go to this place every time we visit India. Very simple menu here but sumptuous food. Weekends they only serve idly, vada and kharabath for savory food. The idly, vada only come with chutney, no sambar. This cafe is very small, there is no room inside to sit/stand to eat food. People normally crowd on the walkway and eat by holding food in their hands. This was a great experience for us and kids.

Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR) lalbagh gate: This is one of the old popular places that most of the folks would have visited. Located in a very popular area close to the famous Lalbagh park, where many people go for their mornings walks in south bangalore. The routine is walk and then have a heavy breakfast in MTR on weekends or a by-2 breakfast on weekdays. My kids are big fans of the food from MTR, so we made it a point to take them there before leaving India. We had super soft large rava idly which melted in the mouth with some amazing potato saagu. Other things we tasted was honey badam halwa, ghee masala dosa – so crispy, ghee pongal. Wow that was a lot of food but had to try everything :). After eating all the yummy food my kids and I wanted to take a tour of the kitchen where all this food was made. We requested the waiter who was serving us to take a tour of the kitchen, he was kind enough to take us in and show where they made the batter, ground the chutney, how the coffee was made in bulk and filled to the cups, storage room where the potatoes and onions were kept. Also got to meet the super chef who made the dosas. It was an exciting experience for my kids..

Rajathadri Jayanagar 7th block: New fast food place in jayanagar area, close to some of the Jr. colleges. There were many students who ate their breakfast here before heading to their class in the morning. This place was big and neatly kept. Had idli, vada, sambar and chutney.. Awesome food !!!

Culture in India is so different there is always time for a nice breakfast at the darshini for people before they start their day.. Love to see the energy in the morning in all these places that is scented with the pleasant smell of the incense sticks, and as the day progresses the place will have a nice aroma of the sambar and other food being cooked. Technology has caught up so much, have to capture this in Rajathadri when we were waiting to pickup our food, we saw one of the chefs taking a selfie with all the trays of soft white idli’s, he took out of the steamer :)..

Eating idli and dosa can never get boring as well as seeing the awesome friendly crowd makes it even more pleasant to start the day!! :)..