Perils of a Punter (breakfast at Jatland ... oops Heartland)

Like there are rewards in finding new and interesting places to eat. The perils or risks involved are tremendous too. This morning, i decided to drop my daughter to school and attend the PTM in the same trip. As a result, i was done at 8.30 am and our office does not crank start before 9.30 am. 

Armed with a newspaper in my hand headed to the nearest market at Green park. I had spotted an Adyar Anand Bhawan  many moons ago. Images of a clean restaurant with Suprabhatam playing in the background, well bathed and hair oiled in white lungis and shirts waiters greeting with warm smiles, hot idlis and fragrant coffee goaded me in that direction.

8.50 am and the shutters are tightly shut with a guy sitting on a stool and absorbing the lazy morning sun, tells me, it opens at 9. I always wonder other than a few, all South Indian restaurants do not open before 9 shed the early Madras Cafe habits in Dravid-land and adapted to the lazy Rajdhani and Jatland of Delhi. Though EverGreen Sweets was live and kicking> I was determined to lose myself in the lanes of Guindy, along the slow flowing Adyar river in Chennai in heartland Green Park.

I go in, a shady place with Uttranchal waiters who haven't bathed in a week, floors being swept of last nights droppings, curtains pulled to avoid the sun. i ask for Idly, sambhar will take five minutes. I settle for Upma, served in a neon yellow thali, go through it somehow terrible tasting chutneys. Ask for, Vada, not ready. Settle for a Masala Dosa. I understand the first Dosa on a Tawa is terrible, i do try and make my point. They bring be a white Dosa (far from brown ) on a even bigger neon yellow Thali. I hate it. I complain. They don’t care a shit. How does a North Indian understand Dosas.


Little do they know this north Indian spent better half of his life in Visakhapatnam and Coimbatore and speaks chaste Telugu and Tamil. They look at my half eaten Dosa in disdain and bring me a full bill. I try to complain and then let it be. 

This is my format of a complain. please avoid the place, at least in the morning if you are from the Southern, northern and any geographical state of india or the world. Namaskar