Bengaluru – The Breakfast City

Bengaluru – The Breakfast City

I like to mix my work and my passion, so whenever I am out travelling, I do add a lot of food. Breakfast seems to be easier because it just falls into the schedule so easily and I am a big breakfast guy myself. I almost never skip my breakfast; as according to me it is the biggest meal of the day.

The Breakfast City, if I can call Bengaluru that. Apart from the tag of The Silicon Valley, the garden city, the lake city, I think it truly deserves the tag of the best Breakfast city too. The amount of Darshinis open as early as 6am serving hot idlis and Khaara bhath is crazy. People out for a run or a morning walk would end up at one of these to end in a healthy breakfast and some piping hot filter coffee.

Bengaluru is turning out to be second home. Have been travelling often to Bangalore now and in some parts have started to like. It is so much like Pune, including the traffic jams. In Pune you will find tons of places who serve good misal and bata wada and here it’s similar for the humble idli and medu vada. In both the cities, if you happen to bump into someone, there are 60-70 percent chances that they will belong to the famed IT industry.

Let’s try to explore a few places why I would call Bengaluru as the Breakfast city.

 

Mavalli Tiffin Rooms

I start with one of the many iconic breakfast places

What do I say about this place? It looked like a temple of food from outside. At 730am in the morning, the place was packed to the brim.  Smell of filter coffee was all what dragged me in.

People standing outside chatting, reading newspapers. People standing inside having their morning cup of coffee. Most of the people eating, were having idlis. This place does serve sambar along with idli and not like some others who serve only chutney.

 

Fortunately, since I was alone, I was kindly allowed by a group of 3 people occupying a table of 4 to be their companion for breakfast. All, senior citizens, had already ordered their idli. The serving staff here too were all happy and smiling. One of them came to me and asked in Kannada what I would have (that’s what I thought). But, no, it turns out he was asking whether 1 or 2 idlis. and I was answering I want rawa idli. Promptly, one of the senior citizens said, son you will get that after 10. So, I changed my order to vada, he asked me where you are from and my reply made him tell me that I should order idli.

I smiled and accepted his suggestion and ordered an idli and did not regret it.  The sambar was spicey from the black pepper and the chutney similarly from the green chillies, my guess. It was a beautiful combination of a steaming hot idli, topped with ghee, provided in a micro bowl.

Not only, was the idli soft but it was large too. The sambar, chutney and idli served was the full breakfast for me. It’s a shame, if you go to a place like this and do not have filter coffee. The coffee was strong enough to go to the slightly bitter side of things. It was a good kickstart to the day.

I don’t feel like saying bye to such places and sometimes wish that I had a bigger stomach to accommodate at least one dish of each of the breakfast items. 😊

 

Brahmin’s Coffee Bar

This place deserved a separate review of its own and you could find it here.

https://www.eatingcultures.co.in/reviews/brahmins-coffee-bar-bangalore/

 

CTR

CTR is also one of the places which has survived the years and continues to delight the heart and soul of the foodies from Bangalore.

When anybody sees the yellowish green plates that the dosa and chutney are served, they know it’s CTR where you are having your food.

It’s a small but a very busy outlet. People mostly come to eat the butter masala dosa. Lot of people like to have the dosa bhaji separate.

The chutneys they serve are two types one is the regular white coconut chutney and the other is a spicy version with green coriander in it.

The filter coffee is the sweetish strong coffee served in a stainless-steel cup and saucer. This too is typical of tea and coffee served in various regions of India.

 

Koshy’s

Koshy’s is a place where friends meet.

When I entered, I saw a lot of senior citizens holding their cup of coffee. They were either waiting for friends to come or already with friends.

On the other hand, I also saw a few couples, giggling and having some good fun. There is a liveliness in this place.

There is crazy amount of options they have in the menu and deciding what to eat does become a problem.

I had minced mutton on toast and an omelette. I ended up topping the toast with pieces of the omelette.

I had a week-long of idlis , vadas and dosa and was missing my egg. The photograph shows how much I love eggs. Tried the mutton cutlet too.

 

Topped it up with black lemon tea in a pot. The steel tea pot and sugar container made my day.

 

Where the food is good, people are happy. When happy people meet, they make the place happy. That is what Koshy’s is. I happened to absorb some happiness from the place.

Going alone to a place like this helps to enjoy the place more than ever.

 

 Vidyarthi Bhavan

 

Butter dosas and Bengaluru are synonymous. I believe the davangere styled dosas are what are served in most family run restaurants here.

Vidyarthi Bhavan takes the taste a notch above. The thick, crispy and buttery dosa has clearly got flavours of methi seeds. Subtle but surely there.

The quantity of butter is unbelievable as you can see from  my fingers in one of the photographs.

The davangere dosa we get in Pune is thick and soft but served along with white butter.  Here the dosas are literally fried in them.

I also had the sagu and Puri combination. Sagu is a mix of bottle gourd, carrots, beans, ginger and green chillies. A few garam masalas thrown in. Goes very well with Puri. This is a dish I would take back home and try on my own

Simple but healthy breakfast options in a much-revered place.  I am told Rajnikanth visits this place in disguise.

Ok coming back, if you ask me to compare the food….I would say I visited the  counterparts of Bedekar, Shri Krishna , Shree upahar group, ramnath in Bengaluru.

 

Veena Stores

Finally visited Veena Stores in Malleshwaram. Now I can say that I have visited almost all the popular darshinis of Bangalore.  We reached a little late by about 9am so had to stand in a queue to get the food.

There are always reasons for places to turn iconic and I possibly know why people queue up. By the way the Swiggy delivery boys’ queue was much longer than the people wanting to eat there.

Coming to the food, the idli was the softest I had in some time. I don’t know whether that’s good or not, but I liked it. I like the bite in my idli a bit or maybe I have been used to hard idlis. This is by far the softest idlis I have had for some time. Served with loads of chutney. The wada was crispy, hot and tasteful.

Since it was Pongal the day we went there, we decided to have sweet pongal too. The jaggery and the camphor combo stays in your mouth for a long time. That’s what sweet stuff is for, minimal ingredients but maximum taste.

Not sure if they are enterprising enough to open more stores or maybe they don’t need to. But, if Chitales from Pune can change with time, the MTR can change I am sure they can do too and brand their idlis as the softest idlis in the world.

 

Indian Coffee House

This place is located on Church street. Located very close to the Metro stop on church street, this place again has an old place charm. Covered by glass all around in a building called Brigade Gardens, I am sure it was the same when it opened too.

They have a good range of menu for breakfasts. The regular, vada, idli and Dosa along with the egg items. The vada and dosa are good sellers and I believe the mutton cutlet and scrambled eggs would be the next on the list.

Aa an after thought I also thought I should have had scrambled eggs or an omelette. But, as my daughter tells me, when you go to Bangalore, you post only idlis and Dosas.

The serving staff were dressed up in very old styled uniforms. They wore white shirt and trousers. With huge red coloured belt and the logo of the restaurant right in front. With a very royal and huge head gear. Old smiling men in their old styled uniforms serving and making people happy with their breakfasts.

The dosa was crisp, the vada was perfectly done, coffee was strong. The sambar and chutney were actually like the Udupi restaurants in Pune. The experience was what was hundred percent satisfaction of visiting this place.

Last but not the least was last minute inclusion of lunch on the last day. I did not have any company for lunch and walked out alone from near Ballal residency and started walking towards something called the Udupi Park, on the way crossed the Gateway hotel. Half a mind was to stop and enter but continued. I reached Udupi park to think I will have a curry and a roti to complete my lunch quickly and go back and work. But bang opposite was Nagarjuna, Andhra style. I remember my niece Akanksha, had specifically asked to me to go here on my last visit. I had to respect her words this visit.

 

The below is not a breakfast place but something of a bonus that Bengaluru gave to me. This place on Residency road was very close to my office and hence got a listing here 😊

Nagarjuna, Andhra Style.

I walked in there with the mind set of only ordering a chicken Biryani as I knew I would not be able to complete a full meal here. Well, I could not complete the Biryani either.

They gave me nice private table for two, even though I was alone ☹ .

They lay down the banana leaf first, open it and then serve the Biryani on top of that. Forget all about the ambience and crowd etc. There was no celebrations on the Biryani, I mean it looked just like a bowl full of rice and looked bland from the look of it.

I looked at it and thought maybe I made a mistake!!! After taking my customary photographs, allowed the waiter to serve some for me. I took another photograph and had the first bite without adding the curd or the gravy given alongside.

The flavours danced in my mouth. Andhra food possibly has been misunderstood by many, like Kolhapuri food also has been. This one was spiced perfect, how I like my biryani to be.  First you felt the cardamom, then the cinnamon, then the black pepper and it just did not end. Chicken was spiced good and fitted with the Biryani. I have observed at many a place, that boiled chicken is added to the mix to make it quick and easy. I am not sure, how they cook in the kitchen, but the chicken blended well with the rice. It was soft and succulent.

The more I write, the more the flavours keep coming back to my tongue. If you are in Bengaluru and a like well flavoured non vegetarian food, this is the best biryani in town.

Signing off from Bengaluru and heading to Trivandrum tomorrow for 3 days of meetings. Hopefully will find time for a walk on the beach and some porota and meen curry. You can give me any number of conferences and tie me down with meetings, but you cannot take the love of food out of me. Yeah, very melodramatic it was. Ha ha ha