Karnataka: Food at Bangalore Cantt

Sixty-five years after the last Union Jack was shredded into lungis, Bangalore Cantonment strives to eat as it did in those halcyon days. Don’t think the Bangalorean’s gratitude to the Raj is misplaced. The Cantonment was conceived in 1791 after Lord Charles Cornwallis, burning to avenge his embarrassing surrender to George Washington in the American War of Independence, wrested Bangalore Fort from Tipu Sultan. The old city, founded by Kempe Gowda in 1537, was a cartographer’s nightmare of congested lanes and cheek-by-jowl shops that nodded their turbaned heads in unison to Bengaluru Pete (or Pettah). Except for its Muslims it was a largely vegetarian, Kannada-speaking borough. The Cantonment became its alter ego, with tree-lined esplanades abutting now-vanished lakes, granite-walled barracks and leafy avenues, where soldiers, traders, labourers and English- and Tamil-speaking gentry wolfed down idlis with curried pork and mopped up fiery chicken gravy with dosas.

The tug-of-war between Bengaluru and Bangalore is reignited every time we break bread. Visitors to the Garden City routinely fete the masala dosas and rava idlis of the Pete’s great dining houses—the Mavalli Tiffin Rooms and the Vidyarthi Bhavans—and the onion uthappams and bonda soups of the innumerable stand-and-hog darshinis. Not without merit, but even as a schoolboy I always had a bone to pick with the sanctimonious vegetarian.

Of late, a homogenising tidal wave of restaurant chains has committed the biryani, seekh roll and shawarma to vulgarity, while few street corners have been spared a KFC or Domino’s. Ergo, in my quest to map the carnal appetite of the Cantonment, I resolved to be picky. Fellow-carnivore Varun and I pledged to be swayed neither by the age nor the charm of joints, and for the most part we ignored malls and establishments with branches.

We began at Johnson Market in Richmond Town. Adjacent to the Masjid-e-Askari, Bangalore’s oldest Shia mosque, the market is a thriving monument to dilapidation in a warren of labyrinthine alleys designed to disorient the most Magellanic of moles. Richmond Town was inducted into the Cantonment around 1883 and until the late 1990s retained pensioners’ bungalows possessed of what acquisitive realtors described as ‘sylvan charm’. Few of these survive, and their ghosts haunt the street names—Rhenius Street, Berlie Street, Curley Street, Rose Lane…

At dusk, Fanoos Paradise (17 Hosur Road, near Johnson Market, Richmond Town; 080-65838266, 9886399614; 10am–11pm) sheds its diurnal veneer. Smoking coal tandoors conspire with sodium-vapour lamps to conjure a murky hell redolent of singed flesh. Shophands weigh bright shards of marinated mutton, beef, chicken and veal on steel scales, passing them to sweaty cooks who stab them with skewers and consign them to their infernal destiny. Fingers greasy with heck-knows-what tuck the sizzling morsels lovelessly into beds of chopped onions and coriander leaves, and fold them into jumbo and mumbo rolls.

That Fanoos escapes the wrath of health inspectors is an enduring mystery if you consider the roaches swarming confidingly at your feet, turning Wall-E’s tummy but barely ruffling the regulars who step aside accommodatingly while devouring the most celebrated Hussainiya kababs in town. Seeing Varun’s camera, one middle-aged gent thought it obligatory to sputter through a spray of masticated mince: “Cheaf and besht!” Maybe he was a health inspector. I was soon nodding in agreement, snaffling mouthfuls of char-grilled veal kabab roll even as Varun, who had scarfed down his heart-achingly tender mutton seekh mumbo roll, strode across the street for ‘Bangalore’s best fresh lime soda’. He wasn’t done until we had chased it with cloying, lemony Suleimani from Makkah Café (3 Johnson Market, Richmond Town; 22274247; 6am–11.30pm).

Bounding off like wolverines to Shivajinagar, we hunted down the aroma of seething coal leached with meat juices to Broadway. The Beef Market, round the bend from the iconic Russell Market, is a foundry that can smelt most cast-iron guts and the fierce-visaged butchers here can get many a PETA activist to put her clothes back on. At the end of a hard Friday’s work, they lean against ruddy hunks of meat marbled with skeins of fat and chat. Amid the thump of dough being kneaded, ladles clattering on tawas and spare parts sizzling on skewers, Broadway is a sensory feast. Tempted by the beef biryani and mutton rolls, we closed in. But before we could kindle a consummate love affair with Entamoeba histolytica, a storm shooed us away.

In upmarket Frazer Town, Hajee Sir Ismail Sait Mosque dominates the intersection of the eponymous Mosque Road and Madhavaraya Mudaliar Road. This is a carnivore’s mecca, and for a foodie to not make a pilgrimage here during Ramzan is unthinkable. Equally alluring off-season is Zak’s (Concorde Plaza, Coles Road; 65950752, 9986146949; noon–9.30pm), an old favourite for charcoal-grilled chicken and seekh rolls. Biryani mavens seek out Zaikaa’s (65 M.M. Road; 28444888; 11am–11pm), though it has spread wings across the city. Al Siddique Kabab Corner (St John’s Church Road; 9845077733; 11am–11pm), Richie’s Rahhams (82 M.M. Road; 25486696; 11am–11pm) and Savoury (56 Mosque Road; 65739230, 41487066; 11am–11pm), quintessential hotspots for shawarma rolls and grilled chicken, have followed suit. For coastal food, townies swear by Mangalore Pearl (3 Coles Road, above K.C. Das Sweets; 25578855, 65677055; 12.30–3pm and 7.30–10.40pm; Tuesday closed) while Ponnusamy’s (22 Saunders Road, first floor; 41535604, 41535605; noon–3.30pm and 7–11pm) serves up Chettinad-style rabbit roast and quail 65.

Our quest for originality led us to Shawarma King (Tawakal Chambers, M.M. Road; 32028839, 9986491164; 12.30–11.30pm, Monday closed). Run by Syrian émigrés, its PR face is 16-year-old Basit. Full of beans, he proudly showed us the eatery’s brochure in which he is pictured with girlish bangs munching a shawarma roll. On his recommendation, we tried the decent but overpriced chicken shawarma, deliciously zangy grilled chicken Maria and slightly over salted grilled mutton Maria served on skewers with insipid roomali roti and too much salad.

Mohammed Sabir’s great-grandfather Mohammed Sulaiman started Albert Bakery (93 Mosque Road; 25486410, 9886165349; 3–9pm) in 1902. “He thought the name would attract the British crowd,” smiled Sabir, pointing to a black-and-white framed photograph. Today he runs the bakery with his father Nawab Jan. Crowds milled around us as the staff packed chicken and mutton cocktail samosas, malai chicken cutlets and dishy pineapple pastries. We tried the greasy but delectable kheema naan and its desserty sibling, the khova naan, and rounded it off with a delicious banana-and-grape muffin.

In twenty minutes we transited seamlessly from halal to haram. At Wild Spice (1 Field Marshal Cariappa Bhavan, Residency Road; 9880381009; noon–3.30pm and 7–11pm), we shared a portion of Coorg pork dry. Lean, succulent pork darkened with ground pepper and the Coorg souring agent known as kachampuli, and speckled with curry leaves and a zest of lime, it’s arguably the yummiest pig you can eat outside a Kodava home. “A family that eats together grows sideways together,” warned a laconic legend on the menu. My eyes welled with grateful tears — or maybe it was the spicy pork — for until recently my pit stop on Residency Road was Indiana Fast Food for its scrumptious, mayo-dripping burgers. Hearts were shattered when it shut shop this year but the much pricier Café Thulp (21, 2nd Cross, CPR Layout, Kammanahalli Road; 41606454; noon–11pm weekdays, 9am–11pm weekends; Monday closed) in Kammanahalli, with thrombosis-hastening burgers named Moo and Gonzeshwara, has more than made up.

We made it just before closing to Daddy’s Deli (12th Main, Indiranagar; noon–9pm; serves alcohol), a popular new Parsi restaurant, which we chose after much argument over Sue’s Food Palace (formerly Sue’s Kitchen, Sri Krishna Temple Road, Indiranagar; 25252494; noon–3.30pm and 7–10.45pm; serves alcohol), reputed for its Sunday buffet of Caribbean delicacies like Jamaican jerk chicken and juicy Trinidad stew beef. Deli’s Mixed Platter, with crumb-fried éntrees of chicken, mince, mutton, vegetable and prawn, was stupendous. I enjoyed the creamy texture of the lagansara lamb with buttery chunks of fried potato, but was uninspired by the salli kheema—spiced mutton mince topped with potato crisps. Regulars rave about the dhansak and the patra-ni-machhi.

A lazy breakfast of appam and mutton stew along with chicken liver on toast, bacon omelettes and ham sandwiches at Koshy’s Parade Café (39 St Mark’s Road; 22213793, 22215030; 9am–11.30pm) is a quintessentially Bangalore thing, sure to fatten your cardiologist’s wallet. Led by the logic that eggs tempt vegetarians to cross over, we descended for brunch into the funky, witticism-laced ambience of The Egg Factory (Whitehouse, St Mark’s Road; 42110041; 8am–11pm; serves alcohol). The menu, styled like an instruction manual, offered a plethora of things eggy, derived from every culinary tradition. The intriguing Kannan’s bull’s eye and the ironic anda papdi chaat (prices unavailable) caught our eye. Varun demolished a three-cheese omelette whisked with cheddar, mozzarella and parmesan and most of a strawberry cheesecake while I sampled an anda paratha. But the pièce de résistance was ménage à trois, a veggie-stuffed omelette bathed in a thick, tangy sauce and served with garlic bread.

At Millers 46 (46 Millers Road, Vasanthnagar; 41148022, 41131746; noon–3pm and 7–11pm; serves alcohol), easily the Cantonment’s best steakhouse, we skipped the obligatory beer and starters—fried calamari and 46ers chicken wings come highly recommended—and dug into the éntrees, a well-done chateaubriand sizzler for me and oriental spare ribs for Varun. I mooched a bit of his when he was not looking, and wished I had ordered it instead.

Suleimani tea at Makkah Caf

Don’t bank on stretchable time, a Bangalore luxury, if you want to catch the hot thali at Marata Darshan (Miller Tank Road/Queen’s Road Cross; 9880551328; 12.30–3.30pm). Naveen Lad and his mother Hemvati Bai, Marathas from Mysore, have run the hole-in-the-wall military lunch home since 1993. Catering largely to patrons from the Congress Party office up the street, it serves unforgettably delicious mutton chops with mudde—dark balls of steamed ragi dough. You’ll weep if you leave without trying the natti chicken. Or the chicken liver fry, but for that you can wait until the shutters go up at Windsor Pub (Kodava Samaj Building, Vasanthnagar; 22258847, 41148006; noon–3pm and 6.30pm–midnight; serves alcohol).

We’re glad we did. Keen to immolate ourselves in organ-meat overdrive, we ordered the coveted spicy chicken liver and brain masala. Both arrived sprinkled with chopped chillies and pleasantly fresh salad—as if they actually expected you to eat the crisp carrots and unwilted lettuce. The brain was perfect — gooey but not yolky — while the liver, shot with spice, was augmented magnificently with lemon zest.

It was time to say so long and thanks for all the fish, and it’s bewildering how much of it is on offer in this landlocked city. We barged into Coastaal Express — yes, that’s how they spell it (6/4 Sivananda Complex, Sivananda Circle, Kumara Park East; 22355094, 22355095; noon–3.30pm and 7–11pm; serves alcohol). Inspired by patrons crunching merrily on shellfish and champing on rings of calamari, we ordered anjal (seerfish) tawa fry, a sinus-unblocking crab masala fry, and haemorrhoid-inflating but excruciatingly yummy prawns chilly, which the waiter recommended we eat with diaphanous neer dosa.

Hungry for more? Meat me in the Cantonment sometime.