Sorry, idly vada sambar is not available electronically!!! I am just sharing some of my thoughts on this wonderful creation and its bangalore connection. Wait a minute!! this is all about the "hotel" version of the I-V-S
Whoever has visited Bangalore and stayed for at least of days will realize the fact I-V-S(and chutney) is one of the lifelines of Bangalore. Idly / Vada attracts people from all walks of life - rich and poor, young and old. What makes it a popular choice? Sometimes I really wonder how someone came up with this idea of serving 2 idlies+vada+sambar? Why not Idly and dosa? or idly with upma? One of the answers can be: All these fit together in one small and manageable plate or a bowl ? Or is it simple economics which put these together? Forget it, whoever (for whatever reason!!) discovered this chemistry, it's a wonderful combination.
What is the IVS and bangalore connection? It could be because of
a)People - Yes, a middle class Bangalorean likes to eat outside
b)Place - Bangalore has lot of educational and business establishments which means there are a whole lot of hungry young people out there!!
c) Long distance commute means that you need to have a 2 tier breakfast - one at home and one after reaching your office because it could take 1 - 2 hours to reach the office?
d)Darshini (self serve restaurant)revolution - which virtually put at least one self service restaurant every 100 meters in the crowded areas.
So that does'nt mean you can walk in to any damn hotel in Bangalore and expect a good IVS. Tracking a good place requires some knowledge in local geography(to get to popular hotspots), some common sense(finding a busy joint), good eye sight(take a look at the vada mountain and guess when it is prepared!!) and trained nostrils(for separating the stale chutney). Darshinis and some of the old time hotels are always a safe bet. The darshinis have a great business model by having minimal overheads and great returns on investment. So the consumers pay less to get fresh and quality stuff. They also offer great taste combined with unlimited sambar and chutney!!. Depending on the place and how much you pay, chutney can be anything from coloured water to a divine creation.
Going further, not all localities in bangalore are loaded with good IVS(C) joints. I would say the old bangalore - basavanagudi, chamrajpet, hanumanth nagar and Jayanagar can be considered IVS capitals. Why they dominate over others? It's a good subject for an elaborate white paper...Well if you happen to go in the morning to any of these areas, you cannot escape the aroma of IVS coming from the darshinis. You will find middle, old aged people side by side with yound kids enjoying this stuff. It is very common in Bangalore to sign off a early morning walk with a Idly or Vada or both!!
Do you ever imagine how many idlies might be consumed in Bangalore. According to my conservative estimates it is at least 250,000 idlies every day considering at least 50 localities/ 10 darshinis/50 idlies per hour!!! I always evaluate a restaurant / darshini by first eating idly / vada. Going by the hotel industry standards, these are not "difficult to make" items and if I don't like the taste, I just walk off from there!!
How do you tell if the idly or vada is fresh? Here is how my friends used to ask simple questions
1)my friends: "is the idly / vada hot and fresh?"
hotelier's default response: "yes sir, very fresh, it is prepared just 15 mins ago"..that means at least one hour in reality. If he says one hour, it means at least 3 hours. If he says it's prepared couple of hours ago, it could be anything from 2-10 hours!!
2)my friends: Can I make out if it's hot by touching it?
hotelier's response1(annoyed): How does it matter? Sambar is hot!!
or
hotelier's response2(cool): Go ahead..its coming directly from the pan!!
So where does I-V-S stand today in competition? As far as bangalore is concerned, kids and the IT crowd are moving towards sandwiches, fruits, cereals, etc. Eating Idly / Vada may longer be the popular first choice. Things change over time and we need to wait and watch the breakfast preferences of today's kids.
See you Soon with another update!!
Nov 16, 2006
Nov 7, 2006
Seattle & Garage Sale
Well, Finally I decided to go ahead and write my blog. I thought of sharing my experiences, random thoughts after reading some of the interesting blogs written by friends and family. Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoy reading this one. In case you don't like it, simply go with alt + F4 !
Let me dedicate my first blog to the beautiful place I am living in - Seattle...Yes this is one of the most beautiful cities I have lived in. I love Seattle for 2 reasons - Friendly people and the interesting places around the city; A bustling down town, the impressive Mount Rainier and the amazing Mount St.Helens and so many more!
Thanks to my job, I have been on the move for the past 4 - 5 years. Yes, we have got used to the excitement of moving to a new place, setting up a home, buying a car and "settling" down. When things settle down too much, there comes a "change" and out we go again..this time to undo our presence in the current city - sell the car, some belongings, give away or throw some stuff.
When we moved to Seattle, we quickly found out the used cars were more expensive than in the NorthEast or MidWest. Even if we were ready to pay more dollars, there was no guarantee of getting a good car. There were some "sellers" who offered to show their car in the public parking lot, then there were cars which did not have good history. Once one of the prospective sellers called us to his place and we promptly started within 5 mins of speaking to him. Fortunately we got lost on the way and called him for directions. By this time, looks like the "seller" had changed his mind. He told us that the car was not yet home. It belonged to his relative who was supposed to be there but had not turned up. We aborted the car hunt for the evening and came home. Once my friend offered to buy a car from a person but the person would not sell the car even after 15 days without any valid reason. My friend had not offered any advance but he stopped looking for car in those 15 days....and had to start all over...
One more fun time we've had in Seattle was going to Moving / Garage Sale during the weekends. There were bunch of my friends who had just then moved to Seattle and setting up home. We used to go as a team to these moving sale locations. We really enjoyed getting up early on a weekend and go in pursuit of used treasures. We have driven as far as 30 miles to purchase a standing lamp :). Some of my friends who never went for a garage sale thought they are missing something and joined us. Soon it was a big party going to such events...In order to have fun time while buying, we established some ground rules like a) Whoever spots their item of interest should openly declare his interest in it; b) One should hold to an item till he decides to buy - Not like go around the place and come back to claim the item; c) Preference will be always given to the person who is going in for a specific item of his choice. Many a times, those simply accompanying in the trip have ended up buying more items. We also used to go in multiple cars just to pick up more items. In some instances one of us would get lost in the directions, come back defeated and admire all the freebies the other group have picked up
There are some more interesting stories...in the next release
Let me dedicate my first blog to the beautiful place I am living in - Seattle...Yes this is one of the most beautiful cities I have lived in. I love Seattle for 2 reasons - Friendly people and the interesting places around the city; A bustling down town, the impressive Mount Rainier and the amazing Mount St.Helens and so many more!
Thanks to my job, I have been on the move for the past 4 - 5 years. Yes, we have got used to the excitement of moving to a new place, setting up a home, buying a car and "settling" down. When things settle down too much, there comes a "change" and out we go again..this time to undo our presence in the current city - sell the car, some belongings, give away or throw some stuff.
When we moved to Seattle, we quickly found out the used cars were more expensive than in the NorthEast or MidWest. Even if we were ready to pay more dollars, there was no guarantee of getting a good car. There were some "sellers" who offered to show their car in the public parking lot, then there were cars which did not have good history. Once one of the prospective sellers called us to his place and we promptly started within 5 mins of speaking to him. Fortunately we got lost on the way and called him for directions. By this time, looks like the "seller" had changed his mind. He told us that the car was not yet home. It belonged to his relative who was supposed to be there but had not turned up. We aborted the car hunt for the evening and came home. Once my friend offered to buy a car from a person but the person would not sell the car even after 15 days without any valid reason. My friend had not offered any advance but he stopped looking for car in those 15 days....and had to start all over...
One more fun time we've had in Seattle was going to Moving / Garage Sale during the weekends. There were bunch of my friends who had just then moved to Seattle and setting up home. We used to go as a team to these moving sale locations. We really enjoyed getting up early on a weekend and go in pursuit of used treasures. We have driven as far as 30 miles to purchase a standing lamp :). Some of my friends who never went for a garage sale thought they are missing something and joined us. Soon it was a big party going to such events...In order to have fun time while buying, we established some ground rules like a) Whoever spots their item of interest should openly declare his interest in it; b) One should hold to an item till he decides to buy - Not like go around the place and come back to claim the item; c) Preference will be always given to the person who is going in for a specific item of his choice. Many a times, those simply accompanying in the trip have ended up buying more items. We also used to go in multiple cars just to pick up more items. In some instances one of us would get lost in the directions, come back defeated and admire all the freebies the other group have picked up
There are some more interesting stories...in the next release
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)