Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, Serangoon Road

From what I had gathered, Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (438 Serangoon Road, tel : +65 6296 5800), a.k.a. MTR, is quite the lauded institution in Bangalore which was started in Karnataka way back in 1924. It has quite a bit of an interesting history which I will not elaborate here. The chain of restaurants is currently run by the 3rd generation of the family that had started it. 

About half a year ago, they opened up here right in the middle of Little India serving food made with ingredients imported from their country. The food was great!

We headed here for a late breakfast over the weekend. The menu required a bit of perusal since certain items were only available on fixed days and time of the week. A late breakfast was also a little too early for their rava idli so we settled for the regular rice ones. These were soft, light and very tasty - especially when doused with the little steel container of ghee and their accompanied coconut chutney.

I hadn't had a kesari bath since the currently defunct Chellas. This was basically a pudding - or porridge as they described of semolina and vermicelli, done with ghee, cashew nuts, raisins and flavoured with saffron. Tasted exactly like I remembered them and good enough for returns.

Amongst a number of dishes MTR is known for, was their bisibele bhath. Which I read also originates from the state of Karnataka. The name translates from their language into "hot lentil rice". Essentially it was a hot spicy porridge with vegetables, curried, with tamarind annndd...a little steel container of ghee for enrichment. It has also been a while since I've last had these. It was great by the way. I liked those little crispy stuff on the side that they served this with.

Their masala dosa made from rice batter, black lentils and stuffed with potatoes was delicious stuff as well. This was quite different from the regular dosa/thosai that we have locally. The skin was crisp, had a little bit of chew in the middle and came in a hue of darker brown; flavoured generously with again more ghee. Ghee like butter, makes everything taste better.

The wash down was their filtered coffee which seemed to be some sort of specialty of theirs. It was okay, drinkable stuff but I'm not sure if Indian coffee is a thing for me.

Looking forward to coming back again.