Go Take The Malleshwaram

Newly opened in the recesses of a busy city market, you’ll feel right at home at Carnatic Cafe, with its informal, red-brick interiors, soft Tamil music to lighten the mood and a cool glass of majjige (buttermilk, Rs 45) to ward off the heat. Started by a Bangalorean, Carnatic Cafe keeps it simple: here, you’ll find quick, polite service, and an otherwise standard South Indian cafe menu livened up with little personal touches.

While we took our time ordering from an exhaustive list of dosas and uttapams, the staff suggested we nibble on their rava idli (Rs 90). The idlis were impossibly soft and flavourful, served with mint, coconut, and a tangy tomato chutney and sambhar. It is hard to resist ordering a dosa curiously called ‘18th Cross, Malleshwaram’ (named after a neighbourhood in Bangalore, Rs 110)—which is every bit as appetising as it sounds, thick with the aroma of ghee, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and layered generously with spicy dal masala.

To offset the heaviness of the Malleshwaram dosa, we gave raagi dosa (Rs 110) a try, a fairly tasty, if plain, alternative should you want to keep it light. But we would not recommend you count calories here—the pineapple kesari bath (Rs 70), cooked in oodles of ghee, accentuated with chunky pieces of the fruit, is a total knockout. The Obbattu (Rs 110), a nicely done southern version of the Gujarati-Marathi Puran Poli, comes a close second. Rounded off with a frothy filter coffee (Rs 40), Carnatic Cafe is a winner all the way.