Food and Us…

There are two things I just love to do it anytime. Travel with company of close friends (to be particular, its Sesh, Vasuki, Bhoo and Ams) and eating. Though I am out of my home country right now, but these are the most missed things and I feel if these things should be shifted somehow here in UK.

After a hell of hectic week (I am not sure its due to work or due to something else), we had company of Sesh and Vasuki to hang around. And to know all the perfect locations, there could be no one except Mr. Seshraj who could guide us. Born and brought up in Bangalore, he knows each corner and at which place what is best prepared. Apart from experiencing best South Indian cuisine including our national breakfast Dosa, under his valuable guidance we have tasted it all in South Bangalore.

From SLV near Ramkrishna Ashrama, Brahman café to MTR near Urvashi theatre, he is never tired of driving and always be with us all the time taking us through nooks and corners of Bangalore. There are instances when we had breakfast in “South Thindees” in Jayanagar and had evening coffee in Siddharth in Mysore. There are innumerable number of such memorable journey we had, sometimes we felt crazy about ourselves, but we really enjoyed all the trip.

My lecturer in collage used to tell “If you are failing to PLAN, the you are planning to FAIL”. Well, sir without planning we have made all of our trips successful and we really enjoyed it.

Times when Vasuki/Ams felt bored, Sesh never got bored to drive and take us along on some real long trips. Some trips we explored old architectures, but some purely meant for food. As a group we never planned to go to a particular place, but only decided when we crossed the city limits of B’lore and hit the highway.

Well, here was one more thing. Most of the times, this was the toughest task – Where should we get food ?

Waiting for Pizza..

Near Tiffanees.. On Mysore Highway..

Ise bolte hain din main taare dikhana.. lol

It’s not because we have less choice, but because we had tasted in most of them. Sometimes it used to take 10 min to decide and sometimes it’s close to 45 min.

Apart from these, we had (have) two groups in here.  One, who loved typical South Indian food and another group which loved (Loves) Pizzas, Noodles and all Junk food. And the later category has Bhoomi and me…

My search for good food continues here during my stay in UK and I miss terribly company of Sesh and Vasuki.

With guidance from my local colleagues here, I search extensively for Indian restaurants and café’s. When my colleague Graham informed that “Chicken tikka” is the most extensively liked national dish of UK, I was quite shocked. We get Darjeeling and Assam tea as well and that’s also a part of breakfast. All in all quite a bit of connection between India and UK and I am loving it.  Local people here love to explore Indian options and love the curry and spices. And well, that’s the reason British came to India in search of Black gold.  A place like UK which is more about multi-culture and multi-ethnic, I am successful in searching Asian (rather Indian) shops and hotels and take-aways. Though, I am not extremely happy, but not disappointed as well. Though Wolverhampton is not as big as Bangalore, it has more than 30 Indian restaurants. I have seen people mostly talking in Hindi and Punjabi.  Though I love to search for different type of food from different cultures and countries, being a Vegetarian my options are limited. I am not disheartened or feeling sad. But my adventure of tasting food continues… Without our close partners Sesh , Vasuki and Bhoo…

Love you guys.. 🙂

VV Puram’s Eat Street

Me and Ramesh (Ams Cousin) whenever meet, among many  there is one topic we never miss…

“Eating”

We both love food equally and like to try out different spots to satisfy our taste buds. Though we both have not visited the places together even once, but still share our experience on various eat outs. During routine discussion he mentioned about VV Puram’s Eat Street.

Off late, I was planning to visit but it was only during Akshata’s (Ams’ cousin) visit to our home, couldn’t resist my temptation and finally we three ( Me, Ams and Akshu) planned to visit the place. With brief intro from Sesh (who is my food guide and knows lots of unexplored places in B’lore) we finally headed to VV Puram.

It was on the weekend and seeing that “food crazy” B’lore crowd is indeed a treat. The first visit was not at all a disappointment. The entire street has lot to offer. We started from Paddu, then went on to eat Dosa, Pav Bhaaji, Vada pav and so on. Finally Ice cream with Gulkand and all the food is for a quite reasonable price. There are stalls which sell Akki rotti, Ragi Rotti, Idli, Tatte idli, Chats, Chinese food, Holige and so on.

Thing is, you have to stand and eat  like a “street food”. So there isn’t any question of status or anything of that sort. Though there are people who like to come in the car and eat in the car itself. But somehow that causes hell of traffic issues and problem to everyone out there. As the street is narrow, there is not much of a place to drive around like MG road. It is really sad some people lack that basic common sense. Alas! these days eating/ordering in car has become a status symbol.

After that first visit, there have been quite a few visits to VV Puram Eat Street. But this week’s visit was worth remembering as we went in Sesh’s new Scorpio and there was Avarekaal Mela organised by Magadi Farmer’s association. It was fun till the end. There was lot of Avarekalu related food available this time. And boy, the crowd was huge and even the set up for preparing the food was treat for eyes. There were people standing in queue to get the coupons, and somehow Vasuki and Ams succeeded in getting some Kodbale and Ambode. This time as well all the food were awesome. Also, our Sesh knew many shop owners there. We could taste  new varieties of food including Hesarubele Masala (this was indeed mouth watering). Expcept Avarekal Uppit, all the things were really tasty. (This may feel I’m over enthu but, I simply love Mom’s Avarekal Uppit… and rate it as the best Avarekal Uppit in the world.)

Avarekal Dose

With jokes every now and then from Sat and Sesh, we did not notice we had spent more than an hour on the street.

It was a super Saturday that ended after having desserts @ Natural’s in Jayanagar. Though after coming home we continued our gupshup at Sat’s place till early mid night. Sat had some excellent flavoured tea bag collections which we tasted late night and our eat out came to perfect end.

Further, sleeping at 2 AM and waking up early morning on a Sunday and expecting breakfast from our better halves is rude on our part, Sat being a very good hubby called us at 10.30 AM and came up with the idea of having breakfast at SLV, Gandhi bazaar.We were just awake and without wasting time hopped into Sesh’s Scorpio and vrooooooooooooom..

Wow..What a way to begin Sunday..

Avarekal mela is over. But guys, it’s never too late to visit VV Puram’s Eat Street to enjoy some real best delicacies of Bengaluru.

If you don’t know how to go there, here is the way… Simply ask for Sajjan Rao circle, park your vehicle around the circle and take a left from VB Bakery.

Average cost per person : Approx Rs. 100

(Edit: Amitha)

A fire argues?

Wanna sip Tea…

There have been loads of coffee and Tea bars opening up all over the places now a days. But, we all know its the Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) which came up with the idea of a home grown coffee/tea bar, where one could sit, chat and relax. The idea of “Anything can happen over a cup of coffee” simply struck a chord with young and not so young alike.

Way back in 2002-2003, the first CCD  opened near Chennamma circle in Belgaum, everyone was talking about how costly was a cup of coffee there. I remember my uncle telling with surprise and shock about the cost of a coffee and also the people who visit there are not so wise to spend 40 bucks (in 2002-03) for a coffee.

Now, CCD/Barista’s are the places where we see loads of crowd hanging out. After having a lot of CCD/Barista, we both wanted to try out something different, but similar to above. We could sit, talk and have some snacks and sip hot tea.  Well, we all know there are many types of Coffee available and there are some limited options on tea in CCD, but still we were looking out for a specialized tea bar.

Accidently we happen to find a place called “MY TEA HOUSE”.

It’s not as posh as CCD, but nice place to sit. Its more like a bigger hall, some TV sets placed across and visible from all any part of the hall. MTH spcializes in different types of tea. Right from Assam tea to Kashmir tea. There are milk and Non milk teas available. As per the claims by MTH, he has more than 100 types of teas available.

Snacks wise, there are sandwiches, burgers and other fast food available and each will be prepared afresh and served (Unlike CCD where they just have that readily available). Though the “Hyderabadi Sulaimani chai” may not exactly taste as good as the native chai, but not bad also. In MTH, we have tried many types of teas over a period of time and there are not many complaints from our side.(Once I tried Kashmiri tea, which has no sugar but there was Salt  and I could sip only twice. I should have listened to the advice of the guy there…)

Snacky wise, Garlic bread platter was the most I liked, apart from Club Sandwich. There are burgers, french fries, noodles, omlette, Paratha etc. There are some cakes available as well, but we have tried only once and not found worth of it.

Now, coming to the cost…

An average tea would cost around Rs. 50+ and snacks starts Rs. 45 onwards and upto Rs. 150 or so.. On an average per couple with tea and a light snack would cost upto Rs. 250-300. Earlier there was no credit/debit card, but now I guess he would accept as I have seen a machine there on the counter.

They do sell Tea powder apart from some fancy tea cups made of clay.

MTH is approximately half a km from DG petrol bunk on the ring road towards Kamakya on the Left hand side. And is located next to the Mane thindi opposite to Corp bank ATM.

Here is the exact address …

No. 293, 4th Phase, 7th Block  100 Ft Ring Road, Banashankari, 3rd Stage, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560085

Give a try sometime..

Cheers..