Benne - Busted Today

 Benne - The Dosa Story 

I grew up in South India, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and then Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. Although a Punjabi born and bred, I grew up with Telugu and Tamil sensibility. So I called myself a Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing (pun intended).

I visited Karnataka as a Child, was acquainted with Udupi style food but missed the Benne bus…

Launching the Mint newspaper … I was stationed at Church Street… Life there is another story for another time , and another post…lets stick to Dosas..and the Dosa story 

I was exposed more to Bangalore cuisine by Rajesh Kannan and gang…among a million places we visited MTR was bowled over till I went with the family to Vidhyarthi a legend and sorcery of dosa making.

Slowly my Dosa footprint got bigger and stronger.

All over India, on my travels with a companion and partner in crime or without I seeked the thick Bangalore Dosa and the Workshop Idly ..

With a million misses I would find one hit. Later in my hometown Delhi before the surge of South Indian restaurants I somehow found solace at Udupi at ITO, at the Karnataka Bhawan at Motibagh and then ofcourse Many times at Carnatic Cafe.. often called Benne Dosa, Davangere Dosa, Bombat , Malleshwaram again some hits and misses…

Then came the third Wave.. Amudam, Sangeetha, A 2 B, Gokulam, Rediscovered Chidambram so the Sunday morning for 30 odd weeks was at South Indian Tiffin…place

Then about 8 weeks ago Benne opened in my neighborhood.. lines as long as 100-200 people.. on a Sunday, every Sunday… we laughed at the waiting patrons we we drove past , sometimes taking a picture and saying Bhandara or Langar.. but deep down I wanted a piece of the pie.. sorry dosa..

So there was breakfast life which was BB and AB  (Before Benne and After Benne at the Delhi South Indian breakfast scene) quite similar to BC and AD in History Chronology 

Sagar, Naivedhyam, Dosa & Coffee albeit strong Chains were losing their prominence and mindspace with me slowly 

And then the night will fall bringing peace to all … I called Benne and figured there low turnout periods… I somehow extracted it from them by charming them and disarming them..( you can do the same to know the secret from me).

Finally, this morning after the prayers at the  Gurudwara..we landed up there .. walked in like a breeze ordered on the video wall quite like Costco food wall , well mannered staff, unassuming, polite and almost charming, despite their huge success and recent crowds and incessant performance…

The food very nice, crisp benne dosa, Podi workshop idli and Bunz.. from Mangalore and Konkani breakfast ( which I was inspired to have at Cafe Bhosle- Porvorim Goa - our second home..though the original recommendation of  Sachin Tendulkar was Cafe Tato also in Goa)

The Bunz was good …here too..

Would we again absolutely.. not only for the experience the food and the staff but also need to experience more of their repertoire…

Cheers to Benne Bunz and Bullets..