Like hungry hawks in search of prey, a bunch of us swooped down to one of Bangalore’s oldest, lesser known street food addas. Nagarathpet, Chickpete, Avenue road, the city’s busy business district that’s choc-a-block with shops and shoppers during the day turns into a street food haven by night. The area around Raja Market, near Chowdeshwari Temple Street is pure delight for idli and dosa lovers in particular as you get some of the best ones here.
The bustling crowds that serenade the food-carts/stalls are proof of the pudding. We stuffed ourselves with piping hot, super soft spongy idlis with coconut green chutney and red chilli gram chutney. Next we moved on to the dosas. The speciality of the dosas here is the pudi (powder – similar to chutney pudi) that is smeared generously on the inside of the dosa along with huge lashings of ghee. Deep brown crispiness on the outside and fluffy white softness with a smattering of pudi inside is what we all feasted on. It is interesting to note the variations in the dosas – pudi plain dosa, pudi masala (with potato palya), and pudi chitra anna (lemon rice).
Apart from this, there are lots of vendors making hot jalebis, badam milk and basundi. We were so stuffed with the idli and dosa that we skipped the sweets and other treats. Next time for sure! A word of caution: This area is not the cleanest, turn a blind eye to the surrounding and concentrate on the FOOD :P!
