Vasu Ramanujam's Blog

Last weekend, I had been to a place called Vidyarthi Bhavan, located in the bustling Gandhi bazaar marketplace in Bangalore. After completing our regular shopping ( “regular” would mean anything and everything to do with wifey dear, who is great on impulse buying ), wifey dear suggested I try out Vidyarthi Bhavan….

A relic from the old times ( one board indicated “estd 1934″ ), this place has been suitably modified to suit the modern times. well…almost.. The ambience is definetely old world, complete with waiters dressed in Veshtis/ Uniformed blue shirts, gigantic idly/dosa batter making devices, etc.

Like the Inspector guy from Ratatouille, it was compelling to order everything that was there was there on the menu, only catch being there was NO menu. The menu was whatever the waiter told you… and it was pretty much the standard fare…you had the following choices:

1. Masala dosa
2. Vada
3. Khara bath
4. Kesari bath

Delicious fare- Unbelievable prices

I ordered the first three… and then the fun started.The sheer experience of watching these folks “optimize” the way they serve the customers, the way they tossed the plates (and sometimes the customers) around, the spontanaitey of it all…. left me mesmerized….

Masala Inside- Vidyarthi Bhavan's trademark dosa

Then the dosa arrived. Just the dosa. No accompaniments. No sambar, no chutney…atleast not yet. The waiter was handling twenty plates of dosas and tossing them around the table… And then there was another guy who would follow him with a huge “chutney jug” and pour the semi liquidy chutney on top of the buttery dosa which is filled with the delicious masala inside. The dosas here are thrice the thickness or regular dosass we get in Chennai/ elsewhere.

Vidyarthi bhavan- retaining Old world charm in a modern world

Filter Coffee was a tad watery and quite disappointing.. I like my coffee to be of  just the right proportions – frothy, aromatic, not too sugary, and a swirl of white milk with browny edges and ofcourse served piping hot.

All in all, a great experience.

What is Satruamudhu, you ask ? Just another name for the ubiquitous, all pervasive, Rasam… Iyers ( I..errs ?) call it Rasam, while Iyengars ( I, Iyer, Iyengar, you see )  glorify it as “Saatru-amudhu”. Obviously, you will understand, when I say this is still one of the ‘indispensables’ in my menu, along with tachi mammu ( no tai-chi, kung fu stuff, just plain curd rice!). 

Funny, how Iyengars have to give grand sounding names to simple dishes. Take payasam… that gets ‘translated’ to ” Thiru-kan-amudhu’ .  My uncle used to “mei silirchify” ( this is quite difficult to translate to English..closest is “goose pimples”) when he got to explain how these terms actually came into vogue. Our Azhwars and Acharyas ( Saints divine) were so immersed in Bhakti that everything was/is under the Supreme Lord’s grace… hence we partake food that has been graced by his eyes and feasted by the Lord himself… Another interesting interpretation I found on the Net is

Thiru kannal amudhu has become thirukkann amudhu. Kannalmeans sugercane, the base crop of suger and jaggery used in pAyasam. This is from the Kanchi Forum 

Be that as it may, no one can beat my Mom’s satruamudhu, i mean, Rasam… My friend, Sathya, has plans of compiling a cookbook exclusively focusing on south indian delicacies and i am sure this will make its way in there .

Right now, for another cup of  Satruamudhu…