D.P. SATISH of CNN-IBN writes: Whenever I visit my home state, Karnataka, friends and relatives helpfully ask, “Why don’t you come back to Bangalore? You can happily eat idli, dosa, mosaranna and chitranna. Why do you suffer in hot and dusty Delhi, eating the same roti and sabzi day in and day out?”
Good, heart warming advice for a hardcore Kannadiga like me indeed. But is food the only attraction in Bangalore? Certainly not. But surely it is one of the best things about Bangalore.
At least it was.
The city has a hundred labels: Garden City, Knowledge City, IT City, and Pub City… But Food City describes Bangalore better than all other labels.
Sadly, though, the best eateries of Bangalore are dying.
Bangalore’s famed hotels (so called by Kannadigas even if they offer only food and no lodging!) are disappearing one after another.
These hotels are not just eating places. They are institutions. When two Bangaloreans settle down for snacks (favourite dosa, idli, vada or ambode) or coffee, they don’t just share what is served. They share a cultural outlook. These hotels gave birth to many literary and cultural movements in the state.
Who doesn’t know Vidhyarthi Bhawan in Gandhi Bazar, its crisp masala dosa and rava vada?
I still remember the day I entered Vidhyarthi Bhawan through its back door with the legendary journalist, the late Y.N. Krishnamurthy (popularly known as YNK), on a cold morning. In fact YNK was the last word on eateries and watering holes in Bangalore, and to him I owe my knowledge of hotels in Bangalore!
It was a great centre of intellectual debates, literary discussions, and a meeting place for the Who’s Who of Kannada literature and culture till recently. Giants like D.V. Gundappa to Masti, Girish Karnad to U.R. Ananthamurthy, Raj Kumar to Shankar Nag, cricket legends E.A.S. Prasanna, B.S. Chandrashekhar to G.R. Vishwanath were regular visitors to this small, low roofed, Mangalore-tiled hotel.
The hotel survives. But sadly its decline has already begun.
Brahmins Coffee Bar in Chamarajpet is the best place for idli and vada in Bangalore. This cramped eatery does roaring business even today. But it seems to have lost its old charm and its celebrity visitors.
Dwaraka Hotel on Bull Temple Road was once synonymous with the finest khali dosa. It has already made way for a multi-storey building.
The magnificent ‘Victoria Hotel’ opposite Mayo hall made way for an ugly, multi-storey mall, five years back. The great prime minister of England and a celebrated Bangalorean Winston Churchill was its regular visitor between 1890-1910. It was one of the most beautiful buildings in Bangalore.
If you live around Sajjan Rao circle and Minerva Circle, you are sure to be familiar with New Modern Hotel (NMH). Thoughts of its dosa and plate oota (or what the northerners call a thali meal) make me ravenous even as I write this in Delhi in the middle of a hot summer night.
NMH was once a meeting place for Kannada cinema stalwarts. The new stars turned their backs on this hotel decades ago. It is now struggling for survival.
Janatha Hotel, which is just a few feet from NMH, is also counting its last days.
VB Bakery at Sajjan Rao Circle is no longer a hot favourite of old Bangalore. Today’s yuppie crowd has no time or taste for old-fashioned bakery stuff! It was the cricketer Anil Kumble‘s favourite haunt during his National College days.
Fort Lunch Home opposite the Bangalore Fort has now become a part of history.
Where do you go, if you want to taste an authentic Mysore meal on MG Road? Brindavana Hotel next to Sympony cinema is the obvious choice. This hotel, too, is on the way out. I hear the owner is planning to build a huge shopping mall there. It makes business sense to pull it down to build a mall. But such demolitions most certainly sadden old and true Bangalorean hearts.
Another old hotel serving an Udupi menu in neighbouring Ulsoor downed its shutters a month ago. Komal Hotel at the junction of Wheelers Road and Assaye road may live at best for another two or three years.
Big names like MTR, Janardhana Hotel, Udupi Krishna Bhavan, Sri Sagar (Malleswaram), Krishna Bhavan, Airlines Hotel, nearly 200-year-old Dewars Bar (known as Bangalore’s first bar !), road side eateries at Sajjan Rao circle and idli, dosa night hotels on Ibrahim Sahib street, many old hotels on the three-century-old Avenue road and historic India Coffee House on M.G. road also look like they are past their glory days, and are waiting to shut down.
Who is responsible for the death of these eateries?
Has the Bangalorean stopped eating out?
The booming restaurant business in Bangalore tells a different story.
As the city grew, its demographic profile altered. New people, new jobs and an entirely new lifestyle brought new things into the city. Bangalore accepted them all. But tragically, it lost its old eating places to the real estate boom.
It is a sad story of real estate sharks eating Bangalore’s best eateries.
All these hotels are family run businesses. The younger generation is no longer interested in carrying forward the legacy of their fathers and forefathers. They have firmly set their eyes on real estate money or on bigger, better white collar jobs, which bring them social status and more money.
There’s nothing wrong with change. But some changes break your heart. Bangalore’s future looks like it will cleave the city into two. Two Bangalores living side by side, but strangers to one another.
We see it in the new cosmopolitan Bangalorean’s total ignorance of the old Bangalore world, of its language, of its writers, its traditions, its culture, and its eating habits. The growth of a city does not depend merely on its per capita income or its infrastructure. It has something called Soul.
As the noted novelist Shashi Deshpande says of change in Bangalore-Bean town to Boom town (edited by Jayanth Kodkani and R. Edwin Sudhir):
“It [change] generally happens over a period of time, giving room for assimilation, for absorption. In Bangalore it has been just too rapid, so that there are too many people who have no idea of its original culture and yet, because of their income and positions, have a great influence over the shape of the city and its future. And therefore the danger that it could be a city completely cut off from its past. An amnesiac city. “
When I return to Bangalore in future, I may have to be content with cappuccinno coffee and pizza, instead of traditional by-two coffee and dosa.
What a tragedy.
Cross-posted on kosambari
Talking of Vidyarthi Bhavan, perhaps it was a good place to go to when my grandfather was in the 4th standard in Fort High School!
But the present day avataara of the ‘famous’ eatery is by no stretch of any hungry stomach’s imagination anything to feel satiated about.
The waiters think they own the place; it looks like they have been coached to smile once in seven and half years; the chap (owner?) who sits on the ‘galla pettige’ has the air of a man whose name has already been enshrined in the annals of humankind as the chosen one who did the greatest number of favours to the maximum number of people on earth; the wait for the ‘dose’ is interminable and…the chutney is simply, terribly awful, a grand mixture of a ton of abominable lentils and three grams of coconut for each helping!
If anyone recommends Vidhayrthi Bhavan to you again, please feel free to call me.
I shall readily tell you how you can kill a man or even a woman for that matter by smashing a ‘dose’ on the head!
But promise me you’ll not let go of the plate when you do it!
Come come Sunaad. Vidyarthi Bhavan is definitely lacking in “ambience” but the doses are wonderful. Atleast they were four years ago when I last went there. You get the same treatment from the waiters if you go to MTR too.
However I must say that the mad scramble for doses not withstanding, I prefer our good old GTR in Mysore that made going to NIE a pleasure for non-academic reasons.
Yeh, true! Masala Dosas are really wonderful at Vidyarthi Bhavan even now. In the evenings, one has to wait for his turn to enter the hotel or find a table. That shows it is still a popular hotel in Bangalore.
Even in my Bangalore days of early 1960s, one had to wait outsideVidyarthi Bhavan along with many others waiting customers to find a table. People did not mind the waiting as they were sure to be rewarded with delicious masala dosa.
“… many old hotels on the three-century-old Avenue road and historic India Coffee House on M.G. road also look like they are past their glory days, and are waiting to shut down.”
a suggestion: these restaurants could abandon their current clientele and go after exclusively high profit it clientele. rename dosa in french (it will sound more chic and enchanting), convert the price to ‘global standards’ (i.e. remove the Rupee sign and replace it with the euro – keeping the numbers intact), restrict patronage only to those holding reservations …
i must add that this is a tongue in cheek comment, lest those eateries should decide to follow my suggestion!
– s.b.
even tho I have heard lot abt Vid. Bhavan, I resist from going inside as it is always full and the waiters are too aloof for my liking, couple of weeks back , after a yenne party we went to the other famous landmark VV puram for having some dosas @ 11 PM …it was simply superb , I highly recommend guys who havent gone there as yet to enjoy the roadside ruchis b4 they are shut down and replaced by a shopping mall :(
Vidyarthi Bahavan had an offer some years back from a businessman that he will construct a three-storey building and increase the clientile. Wisely, the owner rejected the proposal and decided to stick to the ‘same Menu. same customers’ principle.I remember siting in the kitchen and eating 5 by 8 Masale dose there.In Gandhi Bazar, ‘Bhattara’ Hotel was good for Benne Idli and ‘Geetha Bhavan’ for coffee.But who can forget ‘Harsha’ stores and Ganesha Stores for for Badami Haalu at night?It is after eating in ‘Yagnappana hotel’ opposite National High school, all the cricketers who Satish refers to, cut their teeth, in a manner of speaking! One could also add,’Brain Tonic’ the marathi gentleman (Gokhale?), used to sell, which would give a kick to the brain and made National College famous for its ranks!
ERR
I am all for nostalgia–provided there is hygiene as well. VB is an anachronism with its own vegetarian Taliban type supporters. IMHO there are far superior masala dosas available every where. The VB waiters are uncommonly rude and it is always a service with a smirk. By going into a bigger building VB can offer a better eating experience–instead they prefer the grimy prewar decor and atavistic practices.
In fact if you ever venture into Kollegal city, please try the “Line Hotlu” masaldosey!
The money with real estate is too tempting for anyone to resist. Very rarely we see the heritage value or emotions taking the front seat. Cash Pharmacy was brought down few months back, after all other buildings in the vicinity. The owners are retaining the old tiled roof architecture, but will be a bigger building. The advent of glass and metal finishing has robbed the charm. There is one still surviving in 3rd Block – Amba Bhavani, with those teak wood tables and chairs and a decent menu as well.
People prefer a 3 day old pre-cooked pizza at Cafe Coffee Day to a freshly baked stuff. Hmmm…thier choice!!!
Hope things will come a full circle…
In some of the Bangalore’s upmarket hotels, they prepare Dosa Batter few days in advance, add overnight aloo Pallya to the thava over the dosa and serve the so called M.D. in front of a fountain with Beethoven in the background! I would prefer supposedly unhygenic, freshly prepared M.D. at V.B. anyday wiping my hand off a Prajavani thundu paper at the end.
ERR
Hmm this is a revelation! IMHO I find VB M.D. too fresh with little or no fermentation–but that’s how some like it and that’s OK. Probably that is also VB’s trade secret of varying quality M.D.’s as the day wears on and the dosas appear even ‘freshly’ made:)
Great Churchill aa? nann kittogiro bata chappal!
whatever, good for you that you admire churchill so much. BTW he was PM of GB, not England, there is a sea of difference! You can’t say Manmohan Singh is PM of UP and get away with it, can you?
@ Danny:
Great is used in a context and neednt essentially be a mark of admiration. More often than not it is merely an acknowledgement of the influence that a person has had on his/her times. Its not a very objective measure but there it is. Even you cant deny that Churchill was one of the most influential figures of the last century and his stance and perspective moulded his times and to a large extent ours as well. That would make him great and as would on the same counts (sadly ) Advani and Jinnah be great.
For the sake of hair splitting Churchill was the PM of the United Kingdom of GB and N Ireland. Again a sea of difference ( and not really so different ) from what you correct Danny boy.
Yella sari adyak kittogiro bata chappali itkondiddhira swamy? By the way Thomas Bata of East Tilbury by way of Zlin (Czechoslovakia) was also a great man.
DB,
I appreciate your explanation of maintaining MD quality over a day cycle which as you say was the secret of VB and the reason why so many flocked to VB. In Mysore the Iyer Hotel ( we used to call it Raju Hotel in 1950s and 60s) near VV Market used to maintain such MD quality all day.
Ranga,
Thank you.
Saar give me Raju Hotlu any day!
If you ever go to Mahadeshwara Hills and when you pass through Kollegal city, you must sample MDs from ‘Line Hotlu’–probably the best masaladosas ever I have eaten in my life!
Gaby
A great rejoinder!
Masale dose at VB is any day better than the dose served at darshinis and sagar’s of today. I was disgusted to see in one of the sagar hotel, the cook sprinkling some sort of colored powder on the masale dose from what looked like a talcum powder dabba. When I asked him what it was, he replied it was a replacement for the kempu chatni that is normally applied on the dose before putting the aloo palya on it. He said it saves time and is easy to prepare the powder.
Needless to say that the masale dose sucked…
For a Mysorean, Vidyarthi Bhavans, MTRs nothing compared to Ananda Bhavan, Indra Bhavan, Indra Cafe and Madhu Nivas of 60’s and 70’s in Mysore. And the lunch at Dasaprakash, Mysore…. Oh! Only the one who has eaten in these places knows the essence of tasty food.
long long ago.. jayanagar 4th blockalli there was a hotel called guruprasad (above city-style .. across from coffee day)… he served the most heavenly rave idlies ever. for some sad reason, he closed down.. was replaced by a heMDada angadi which itself was later replaced by some satya sai tourist company or something and rave idlies never tasted the same again :( anybody remember that place?
I’ve been driving past it the last week and it looks like Dewars is now closed. For good.