I am introduced to the culinary delights of Nagarthpet Road by Sachin, a friend whose family has been frequenting it for over twenty years. Regulars like Sachin know the vendors by face, and know who can be trusted to serve up the crispest dosas. And they know who makes the tangiest red onion chutney, although the stuff is made in limited quantities and disappears fast. In fact it is quite normal for vendors to refuse customers onion chutney even when there is some left, just so that there is enough chutney for their own dinner. “Just because they make it, doesn’t mean they don’t want to eat it,” says Sachin, negating a convenient misconception I have always had about good cooks.
On my first visit I try pointing out to the man at the counter that there is still some red chutney left. Please? I ask pathetically. “No, it’s all over,” he says, putting the vessel away where I can’t see it.
The unnamed shop next to Mahendra Cut Piece Centre is the best place on the road for idlis and dosas. The owner, Lakshmi Nataraja, started out with a wooden cart and bought himself a permanent shop after years of struggling and sleeping on the streets. Now it is the most prosperous establishment on the road, and customers cram his shop until 11pm everyday. Lakshmi Nataraja laughs when I ask him how many dosas he sells a day. Too many to count, he says. I suspect he knows how many, but won’t tell me because it is an embarrassingly large number. I don’t press the question any further since I have yet to ask him an even more impolite question: what does he put in his dosas that make them taste so damn good?
On a visit to Nagarthpet Main Road, I usually follow a standard route. Start with idlis and dosas at Lakshmi Nataraja’s shop and then proceed to the other end of the road for jalebis. The jalebis are hot and sticky, and squirt sugar syrup when you bite into them. Perfect if, like me, you have a sympathetic appreciation of sugar, or as people who don’t understand call it, a sweet tooth.
This is followed by hot badam milk. Dangerously juggling boiling hot liquid from one glass into another, the vendor asks you whether you want cream with your badam milk. Other customers stand around feigning nonchalance but I make no effort to hide how impressed I am. “No cream,” I say, very worried that any second, the badam milk will start obeying the laws of physics, and scald the young man. His feat is even more impressive because he is at the mercy of the unwritten rule in Bangalore that any beverage worth drinking is worth dividing and so, if someone orders a ‘six by eleven’, he will be expected to divide six glasses of badam milk into eleven exactly equal fractions without spilling a drop, and not charge for his mental effort.
And if somebody is still hungry after eating idlis, dosas, jalebis and badam milk, there is Special Pav Bhaji. I say Special, because the endearingly cheeky pav bhaji vendor makes no provision for anything less than Special at his stall. You simply do not have the option of a Normal or a Plain pav bhaji.
As he shows me bucketfuls of rice being mixed with lemon juice, groundnuts and masala, Lakshmi Nataraja unwittingly supplies me with a quotable phrase. “Cheez dena to accha dena,” he says, beaming with pride. He is disarmingly humble about his success, putting it down to a strict adherence to quality. Only the finest basmati rice is used, he says firmly. He shows me a plate of green peas. I am not exactly sure what he wants me to observe, but I nod anyway. They look very clean.
Hungry patrons watch dosas sizzle on the tava, anticipating the moment when the cook will cut open a packet of ghee and pour it on. He smears the inside of every dosa with a fiery chutney powder which soaks up the ghee, resulting in a dosa that I can only describe as ‘juicy’.
I finally work up the courage to ask LN what the secret of his dosas is. He replies with a question: would I tell anyone my personal secrets? I suppose I wouldn’t, not if my dosas were that good.
Lakshmi Nataraja has spoilt me. Since I first ate his dosa, I have never been able to order a dosa at a Shiv, Shanti, Sukh or any other of the uninspired Sagar restaurants that serve absolutely average South Indian food. Yes, they have seating and waiters bring food to your table but for Lakshmi Nataraja’s dosas I will gladly push my way through the crowd, and just hope that the cook hears me when I shout my order out at him.
Directions: To get to Lakshmi Nataraja’s shop, head towards the Mysore Road flyover from Hudson Circle and take the right just before the flyover. The second left (at the temple) is Nagarthpet Main Road. LN’s shop and the other food carts are some way down the road.