L’Antica in the French Quarter of Pondicherry

Blog, Food and Drink

I wrote this on 1 March, 2019.

Coming to Pondicherry after 3 years, I find that the French quarter is home to many more pizzerias than ever before! There is one on every other street, its cozy interiors welcoming hungry souls in.

We were walking along Mission Street looking for a place to lunch in, when we spotted this joint. We were actually heading somewhere else, but the heat was maddening and our feet, wobbly.
In we dove therefore and 20 minutes later, found these in front of us. A medium pizza fetched us a small one free, hahaha.

Made in a wood-fired oven, each pizza was a succulent circle of cheese and vegetables, ringed by a crisp thin crust. The pizzas were biggish, the cheese fresh and the toppings, generous. As always, my family gave up along the way and it was left to me to finish them off.

L’Antica opened to customers three months ago. If you are looking for superb pizza and pasta in this part of town, you should check this out.

L’Antica on Mission Street, French Quarter, Pondicherry.

Note: I paid for this meal from my wife’s pocket! 😀

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Conversations are the new mixers

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Float Brewery is a lovable new entrant to Kalyan Nagar in north-east Bangalore.

I wrote this on 20 March, 2019.

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I did expect to have a good time Sunday evening, but I didn’t expect to have THIS good a time.

The launch of the menu of summer cocktails at Float Brewery in Kalyan Nagar turned out to be as heady as the evening breeze in summer. The invitees were all people who know their food and drink, and who appreciate a mellow sundowner or two. Or five.

What elevated the party to a different pitch were the engaging conversations I had with the others. To me, the conversations at this party were akin to great mixers. By infusing distinct and memorable flavours and aromas into the party, they handed me a wonderful cocktail of an evening.

Float is a relatively recent entrant to Bangalore’s pubbing scene. The terrace is perfect for the evenings, while the air-conditioned indoors are just the place for hot afternoons. I can see myself visiting Kalyan Nagar more often, from now on.

Of the cocktails served, I loved the Jager Mule, Capri Water and Blue Tematangi the most. Bramble, I realised, is an acquired taste.

The finger food accompanying the cocktails did not, thankfully, have fancy names. They were interesting variations of classics and won on taste. From the vegetarian section, Parmesan Cheese puffs and Coriander Polenta cakes were my picks.

With their humility, smiles and dedication, Robin and Karan lit up the bar. Chef Vivek Salunkhe ensured that we kept getting an endless supply of wonderful food. Robin, Karan and Vivek – hat tip to you guys and to your efficient wait staff.

Suresh and Rupa, thank you very much.

My other friends, it was great meeting you!

Given the great conversations we were having, I had little time or inclination to take great photos. So, this is the best I have.

Note: I went to Float on invitation and did not pay for the food and drink. I have written this post of my own free will.

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A simple lunch on a country road

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I wrote this on 2 March, 2019.

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One of the joys of eschewing the highway and taking interior roads is the chance of discovering small, basic restaurants serving tasty local food.

Which is why we took the Chengam-Tiruvannamalai road to Pondy. We stopped for lunch at Ananda Bhavan, perhaps half a kilometer down the road from Ramanashramam in Tiruvannamalai. I had to have three helpings of everything on the plate (except for the greenery you see in that bowl) – so good was the food. The meal cost us Rs. 80/- a plate. Definitely worth a halt the next time I come this way.

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A new neighbourhood joint

Blog, Food and Drink

I wrote this on 20 March, 2019.

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Ever since Pooja Dosa Camp came to Kasturi Nagar, it has been a hit! Probably because it serves authentic Tamilnadu style food in an area filled with Darshinis and Sagars. This place is small, clean and quick. And, the prices are a steal!
It is especially popular for breakfast. Mark this place for a leisurely weekend morning. 🙂

Demolished this morning: idli, pongal, dosa and vadai.

Location: Pooja Dosa Camp, Kasturi Nagar 2nd Main Road, opposite Kolkata Victoria Chat House, East of NGEF.

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A food walk in Basavanagudi

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I wrote this on 21 April, 2018.

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I visited Basavanagudi a few days ago – after perhaps 8 years. Since I live in the Eastern part of town, Basavanagudi doesn’t come up on my radar at all. But for a long time, I had been thinking of visiting the old eateries in that area. And finally, last Wednesday, I girded my loins and took the plunge.

Walking through the traditional markets of DVG Road and Gandhi Bazaar was delightfu; I had forgotten Bangalore even HAD such places! The air was rich with the smells of flowers, spices and food. Every other shop and eatery here is more than 60 years old.

With my food-blogger friend Sindhu guiding me, I went on a tiny food trail too. We gave the much-hyped Vidyarthi Bhavan a wide berth and went into two other eateries. Udupi Krishna Bhavan, near Ramakrishna Ashram Circle, has been in existence for several decades. Though the interiors were revamped a few years ago, the taste of the food (thankfully) has not been ‘revamped’. 😀

I had the sagu masala dosa, with liberal helpings of coconut chutney and sambar. The dosa was a smashing hit! I would have had another one, but decided to try something else and plumped for the mini idlis dunked in sambar. These too were very good.

We then wended our way through the market roads to visit a 92 year old grand dame: Mahalakshmi Tiffin Room. Here, I had the khali dosa, while Sindhu tucked into a rava idli. Some delicious filter coffee helped me chase down the dosa.

The decor of Mahalakshmi Tiffin Room is heavy on simple, old-world charm. I especially loved the wooden menu board welcoming patrons at the door. 🙂

Before returning home, I bought some aromatic coffee powder from Srinivasa Coffee, ghee from Rama Traders, Congress from Srinivasa Brahmin’s Bakery and gulkan from a tiny shop whose name I don’t remember.

I will have to visit Basavanagudi and areas nearby a dozen times to cover all the wonderful eateries there – including many less-known ones.

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Tandoori momos, anyone?

Blog, Food and Drink

I wrote this on 22 October, 2018.

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I was taken aback when I first heard this term. My sister was taking us around the market area in Govindpuri in Delhi, when she asked us this question. At first, the term did not make sense, because it seemed to combine two starkly different styles of cooking: tandoori being robustly Punjabi and momos reflecting the softer influence of Tibetan/North-eastern cooking.

Which is why I let out a mild gasp when I saw this. We waited about 15 minutes for our half-plate of tandoori veg momos, but polished it off in exactly 2 minutes before ordering another half-plate!

A half-plate comes for Rs. 30 and has six momos.

Steamed momos are deep-fried before being skewered and roasted on coals. Liberal quantities of Mayo, Maggi masala paste and another masala paste are applied on the momos to make them the riot they are.

This HAS to be my ‘find of the trip’. I can’t wait to go back. In a wild moment, I may even book my tickets only for this.

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My date with millets.

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I wrote this review on 7 March, 2019.

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The bisibele bhath, idlis, vada and kesari bhath looked just like the regular fare dished out at any Bangalore darshini. But there was nothing regular about them. They were all made from millets.

Lunch today was dedicated to the goodness and yummyness of millets. This was the first time I was sitting down to a multi-course millet meal. This lunch had been on the cards for the past four months. But since my friend and I had been keeping hectic travel schedules, we kept postponing this. Until today.

Siri Dhanya Upahara Darshini is a small restaurant near Coles Park in Bangalore East, that specialises in millet-based food. Spread over a small ground floor room and two rooms on the first floor, it is a bungalow repurposed into a restaurant. The decor is functional, though aesthetic. Service is attentive, yet non-intrusive. The food is tasty and filling, with the cooks doing a good job of blending millets in, without sacrificing texture or flavour. Moreover, they had shown restraint with the sugar in the kesari bhath (unlike in most of our other eateries).

The menu is similar to that of the typical Bangalore darshini. But most of the dishes are made from millets. While we had the dishes I mentioned earlier and a cup of coffee, I kept stealing glances at the tempting thali that was being devoured at another table. I have made a mental note to have that on my next visit.

The bill drew a mild gasp from us, because it was less than Rs. 200/-!

I understand that this restaurant is really popular amongst the local populace and pulls in a number of regulars. Thankfully, it was quiet when we went; so, we could yap as we ate.

If you live anywhere close to Central or East Bangalore, this is a place worth checking out.

What we had:
Kodo millet bisibele bhath
Ragi dosa
Foxtail millet idlis and vada
Little millet kesari bhath

Siri Dhanya Upahara Darshini, Promenade Road, near Santosh Hospital, Coles Park.

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A summery affair

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With its excellent food and cheery decor, Cafe Monet is a good place for European delights and cold, summery drinks.

I wrote this review on 13 March, 2019.

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Lunch today was a delightful, summery affair at Bistro Monet on 80 Feet Road, Indira Nagar.

My friend had a smoked chicken salad, followed by a mutton kheema and mint chutney sandwhich (made with a croissant), while I chose a ‘caramelised onion and mushroom sandwich’ (made with brioche). We had the lemongrass lemonade to go with the food.

The smoked chicken salad was (I am quoting my friend) ‘light, flavoursome and comforting’. The bright colours of the salad made for a wonderfully textured and calming visual.

The mushroom and onion sandwich was my indulgence of the week. I normally have a light lunch, or I find that my tummy goes to sleep taking all my senses in its wake. 😀
But the gooey cheese, the mildly crisp onions and well-cooked mushrooms combined to more than overcome my guilt of indulging. At least, this was a bloody tasty meal!
The butter-glazed brioche was so shiny I thought I could see my face in it. Sprinkling some chilli flakes into the sandwich added some oomph to it.

The mutton kheema and mint chutney sandwich was a hit too. My friend oohed and aahed his way through it, which is a big deal for him. The meat was cooked well and spiced just right. The tang of the mint chutney was a good foil for the spice of the meat. The puff pastry was fluffy and light, with just a hint of crunch in its flakes.

While all this action was going on, the lemongrass lemonade was trying its best to keep our palate calm (it did succeed to some extent!). Anyway, it managed to bring our temperatures down by a few degrees.

Bistro Monet has cheery interiors that are easy on the eye – the walls have bare sections alternating with sections that have framed food photos put up. Wooden tables go well with the light chairs and sofas. The well-lit counter and kitchen added life to the place.

I particularly liked the area just outside the door, which is lined with plants and had a lovely wooden bench.

Given all this, the prices came as a surprise. Our bill came to just Rs. 778/-, including a second mutton sandwich, that my friend took home.

An interesting addition to the cafe map of Indira Nagar, Monet stands for great food, good service, superb prices and a warm, breezy vibe. This cafe delivers on every count.

Note: We paid for the food and drinks.

Bistro Monet, near CV Raman General Hospital, 80 Feet Road, Indira Nagar, Bangalore.

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An Old Favourite

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Treat Restaurant in Indiranagar has been serving delicious North Indian food for 25 years! Its quality has remained the same throughout.

I wrote this piece on May 2, 2018.

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Last afternoon, we went to Treat, an old favourite, for lunch. I started going to this restaurant 10 years ago when I first moved to Bangalore. Treat was just a lazy stroll from my office. Since then, I have kept going back to it – perhaps twice a year – even though I don’t work in that area.

Every time I go there, I find the food same and different at the same time, if you get what I mean. This is one of the hallmarks of a great eatery: that the food has the zing of freshness every single time, even while the ingredients and cooking style remain unchanged. It is a tough job to make the familiar seem fresh each time to customers, but Treat has managed to do it for so long.

In the pictures are paneer makhanwala khaas, jeerewalaey aloo, masala anda (chopped tomatoes and onions drizzled on slices of boiled eggs), a basket of small-sized assorted rotis (naans, lachcha parathas, methi roti, plain rotis and kulchas) and a tray containing those essential accompaniments of any North Indian meal – pudina chutney, diced raw onions and pickle.

NOT in the pictures are our groaning tummies and smiling faces. 🙂

In speaking to the owner Mr. Pramod Chaudhry, I learnt that his family hails from Peshawar, migrating to India during Partition. He is an old hand in the hospitality industry, having worked abroad for a while and with Taj Mansingh in Delhi. At the Taj, he learnt from master-chefs who hailed from Lucknow and other places in the North. How well he learnt from them is evident from the rich, authentic flavours of the food served at Treat.

Masalas hand-ground on a mortar and pestle, paneer that is flown down from Delhi twice a week, recipes created by Mr. Chaudhry himself and warm service are just some of the small touches that add up to the Treat experience, overall.

Definitely a case of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole.

Sidelights: 1) Framed posters of Hindi films, photos of Ravi Shankar and Mohammad Rafi and a recreation of ‘the Indian life’ on one of the walls accentuate the Indianness of the restaurant subtly.

2) Check out the framed menu card hung on the wall. This is the very first menu the restaurant offered, when it opened in 1993: a priceless nugget from the past. Interestingly, the restaurant offered pizzas and sandwiches for a while, before setting cozily in its niche of authentic North Indian food.

P.S. We paid for the food ourselves, though we were given a 25% discount (because Treat turns 25), since I am a member of an online group of food-lovers. I have written this review of my own volition.

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A cross-country mini breakfast crawl.

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I loathe stepping out of home on weekends, when I should be idling in bed with a book. Weekends are when things are supposed to come to you automatically from time to time. You shouldn’t have to go out seeking anything. But this morning, I dragged myself out of home and went all the way to Malleswaram for a mini breakfast crawl. My friend is leaving town this month-end and I wanted to take him to one or two of our old eateries.

Our first stop was New Krishna Bhavan (NKB), diagonally opposite Mantri Square mall. We shared a plate of Ragi Dosai and a plate of Jowar/Jolada Dosai. They were true to form. It is always good to eat at NKB. The red onion-chilly chutney and the pure coconut chutney are distinctive touches here. I felt like asking for a second helping of just the onion chutney; it was so good!

From there, we walked up to 7th Cross Road and turned left to reach CTR. I last went to CTR nearly a decade ago. I wanted to try the much-touted benne masala dosa and see if it lived up to the hype. Despite changing its name to Shree Sagar, this restaurant has retained its simple, old-world look, which is very comforting. The fans, the colour of the walls, the framed painting of Madhvacharya, elderly women who remind me of my grandma, the tables and chairs – all seem to be unchanged.

As expected, all the tables were taken and there were nearly 50 people waiting for their turn to sit. The place resembled a stock market of yore, with much raising of hands, signalling and coded gestures. Much like the others, we took up position right next to a particular table in order to ‘reserve’ our seats. The word ‘reserved’ hung in the air. Everyone was looking at everyone else, wondering who was getting up and who was getting a seat. Furtive glances were cast at the tables nearby to figure out what was being eaten. All of us, I am sure, were mentally willing the seated customers to get the hell out asap!

We must have waited for about 15 minutes before we got a table, but in IST (Indian Stomach Time) terms, it seemed like 45 minutes. Post-ordering, our Benne Masala Dosas took another 20 minutes to come. They turned out to be good, but nowhere close to the hype generated. They were just good masala dosas that had been cooked extra-crisp thanks to a generous use of butter. Honestly, you find similarly good dosas in many places across town. It may make sense for people around this neighbourhood to visit CTR frequently, it does not make sense for me to come here again for a long time.

This is just my personal take. Die-hard fans of CTR, please continue to love their dosas.

This trip helped me bust a myth (that CTR’s dosas are out-of-the-world) and confirm a theory (that most people probably rave about old joints and romanticise them due to their heritage and a strong sense of nostalgia. The taste of the food really is actually not the major factor in these cases.)

Finding the room too stuffy (and wanting to vacate our place for the guys standing at our elbow), we paid the bill and stepped across the road to Temple Meals for filter coffee.

Over coffee, my mind kept going back to NKB. Would they think I am a madman if I were to go back there and ask for just a bowl of that red chutney?

P.S. We paid for the food ourselves.

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Ganesh Vancheeswaran

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