You are most likely to be familiar with the topic of this post if you are a Bangalorean living in the Basavangudi/Banashankari vicinity. For those who aren’t, a quick introduction. Vidyarthi Bhavan is a hotel in Bangalore that many people swear by. It is second only to MTR (or any famous restaurant that is always crowded in your city) on its prices and the kinda crowd (the picture makes this obvious don’t it??) it attracts. The most sought after dish here is the ‘Masala Dosa’.
I have been in Bangalore for about five years now and during this period I have heard several conversations on just how ‘divine’ the masala dosa in Vidyarthi Bhavan is. The absolute unconditional foodie that I am, I always look out for places like these. In fact my friends and I go looking for crowded restaurants whenever we go out, the idea being the more crowded the place is, the better the food is if not cheaper!
Somehow with Vidyarthi Bhavan, my luck seemed bad. Whenever I went, they were closed. They close one day a week and the lazy ass that I am, I never bothered to make a note of it. However it is still strange how I landed up there every single time when they were closed for the week. Tried again a few months back, they had a banner up that said that they were closed for renovation.
Finally, I got my chance last week.
As I entered, I couldn’t but help thinking that I might have entered a hospital or a municipal office but not a restaurant. ‘Crowded’ would have been a gross understatement. It was almost as if this was only place within miles that had any kind of food in a famine ridden country. Normally in any restaurant, you would see people sitting and eating and maybe one bunch waiting in the lobby. Here people used the government bus funda: Stand next to a person who is sitting and is most likely to get off at the next stop and stare menacingly at anyone else who might try to beat you to it. Every table had four people eating and four more standing next to them, breathing down their necks. I don’t like crowds and totally hate it when I am alone in the midst of one. But I decided to join the group exercise just to see what the hullaballoo was all about.
It was pretty comical a scene out there. Father and son playing rock-paper-scissors, an anxious middle aged woman trying her best to see her entire family was accomodated, a bunch who had split and landed up in different tables, trying to sustain their previously interrupted conversation by yelling out to their counterparts across the hall, the waiters yelling ‘jaaga jaaga jaaga!’, random yells of ‘chutney!’ ‘sambar!’ ‘coffee!’ ‘tea!’, one bunch telling of another how they had waited for hours to find seats, the other responding with like-I-care expression, a mother and daughter who seemed overwhelmed with the crowd, just standing there, frozen, not knowing what to do, hoping that a knight in shining armour will come to their rescue…
I finally managed to find a seat. I ordered one vada, one masala dosa and one tea. The vada was expensive and it sucked. The masala dosa was expensive and tiny (if you want the exact dimensions, 5 inch diameter), but pretty decent taste wise. The tea was expensive and it sucked. I guess whoever made it did not notice the big gaping hole in the sieve he used. One gulp and my mouth was full of unfiltered tea powder.
All in all, a not so pleasent experience. Definitly not worth waiting an hour for. There are tonnes of better cheaper places the serve much better food and adequately filtered tea!
