Visit to Vidyarthi Bhavan

The hubs and myself had prepared a list of restaurants that we wanted to visit during our tenure in Bangalore and one restaurant which figured high on our list was vidyarthi bhavan. Vidyarthi Bhavan was started 63 years ago and has come a long way since then. My dad mentioned to me that this place used to be a regular hang-out for Masti venkatesha Iyengar, T.P. Kailasam, even Sir M.Visweswaraiah used to visit this place frequently I believe. I visited this jaunt for the first time with my dad when I was 6 years old and since then have been addicted to their masala dosas.

My SIL and FIL were conducting some homa in Gandhibazar so we decided to go to vidyarthis for breakfast and head out from there. We reached the place at 9 a.m and it was a sunday. The place was jampacked, on top of that it was very hot (around 40 degrees to be accurate) and we were sweating like hell. This is a very small place, may be around 1000 sq. ft or so I guess. There are around 20 tables, enough to accomodate 50-60 people. There is a narrow passage next to the seating area where dosa lovers like us stand and wait to pounce on any seat that becomes empty. My pouncing skills have weathered down as I haven't been to Bangalore for long and I seem to have forgotten them completely. However my FIL saved the day by finding an empty seat for all of us. Even before we all could sit there was this huge sumo wrestler who plonked herself on the seat. I usually ignore such incidents and try to find another seat, however this was vidyarthi bhavan and I was waiting for 15 minutes in that heat, no way was I ever going to let her do this to me. I immediately told her in a loud voice that we were the ones who reserved that place first and glared at her. All this I said by standing in my professional kick-boxer pose. The look that I gave her must have scared the hell out of her, she immediately got up and mumbled a weak sorry. I heaved a sigh of relief, and sat down with my family. My daughter was really excited and kept saying "Othelle dose elli??", meaning where is the hotel dosa. Immediately we placed our order and after 10 minutes or so our waiter came by carrying 20 plates firmly balanced on his right hand. Now this to me is a skill. You need to balance these many plates and move through the narrow passage and you also have to make sure that you don't get hit by any of the bystanders (read pouncers).

Finally the fragrant dosas were placed on our table and we all mentally said "attack" and finished them off in a jiffy. The dosa was crip and reddish brown in colour and the inside was slightly thick and smeared with red chutney. The coconut chutney and the fiery sambhar were out of this world. My daughter is a fussy eater, and she is about 2 and half years old. She managed to polish off one and a half dosa and was asking for more. A dosa at vidyarthi bhavan is incomplete without coffee so we ended up having that too. The coffee was also very good. In the end we all came out with a very satisfied look on our faces. This visit was well worth the wait and the heat. God bless vidyarthi bhavan!