On our way back after a stay in a verdant organic farm in
Sullia, we stopped for a day in Mangalore to explore what we could in 24 hours.
While I would be writing about Sullia as well Mangalore in the following posts,
let me focus on food first. I’ve always enjoyed Karnataka cuisine for its
flavours and varieties, and Mangalore was no different. In fact food in
Mangalore goes beyond the regular varieties of idli and dosas even for
vegetarians like me. If you are in Mangalore next time, do sample these
traditional delicacies.
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| Idlis steamed in banana leaves. |
Plantain leaf steamed idlis: Instead of steaming batter in regular idli moulds, the batter is poured into a banana leaf rolled into the shape of a cylindrical holder and then steamed. It was fun to unroll the banana leaf and then dig into cylindrical idlis. We had this as part of our breakfast at New Taj Mahal café.
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| Mangalore buns |
Mangalore buns: This was a true delight to the taste buds.
These buns are not baked but are deep fried. Ripe bananas mixed with the dough
lend it a mildly sweet taste. These airy, light and fluffy banana puris are
served with coconut chutney and sambar. We had this for dinner at a restaurant
called Chutney (Hotel Deepa Comforts) and also when are bus stopped enroute
Pune.
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| Biscuit Rotti |
Biscuit Rotti: This popular Mangalorean snack is neither a biscuit nor a rotti but an
equivalent of a kachori, crisp on the outside and with stuffing inside. The
stuffing was made of fried and flavoured grated coconut. We had this as part of
our breakfast at New Taj Mahal café.
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| Ambade. |
Ambade: These are fritters or vadas made from ground black
gram batter. It reminded me of medu vadas but in a spherical form. It was
absolutely delicious, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside and bursting
with flavours of curry leaves, green chillies, ginger and black pepper.
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| Neer Dosa |
Neer dosa: This is a melt in the mouth soft dosa with a silky
smooth texture. As opposed to the regular dosas made out of rice and black
gram, this dosa uses only rice and coconut. This was served with coconut
chutney too. Wish restaurants in Pune served this too. This one is surely on my
try-out list.
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| Banana podi |
Banana podi: These are scrumptious but very oily banana
fritters or bhajjis. This is made from the delicious Nenthra pazham abundant in
coastal Kerala and Karnataka. I’ve had this in Kerala and my grandma used to make
this too.
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| Special Gadbad. |
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| Pabba's special. |
Pabba’s ice creams: Ice-creams, need I say more. But the
specialty of Pabba’s is in the variety of flavours and sundaes and milk shakes
they come up with. We had the special Gadbad sundae, which had scoops of butterscotch,
strawberry and vanilla ice cream interspersed with layers of jelly and fresh and dry
fruit. Another one we tried was Pabba’s special where we chose the chikku,
butterscotch and roasted almond flavours of ice creams, topped with black currant, chocolate, honey
and dry fruits. Need I say they were lip-smacking!!
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| Image taken from http://tasteofkeralafrommykitchen.blogspot.in/2011_01_01_archive.html |
Nenthra pazham: If you’ve never tasted this variety of
banana, make sure you do in Mangalore. It is typically longer than the green
bananas with a fruit that has a slight orange and peach tint of colour. This
banana is used for making fritters/bhajjis, halva and even kheer/payasam.
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| Yellow coconuts |
Yellow coconuts: The bright yellow of the coconuts on the
road side caught my attention. Although I was told that the taste of the
coconut water would be no different from the green ones, I still wanted to
taste it for the colour J
And I did, and you may too if you like yellow!
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| Filter coffee |
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| Filter coffee |
I never miss a chance to wash down my food with a steaming cup of filter coffee and there were plenty in Mangalore. Coffee tastes as delicious from a cup and saucer as in a traditional tumbler and bowl !
We spilt our breakfast, lunch and dinner between two restaurants. One was Chutney, in Hotel Deepa Comforts on MG Road. The place is air-conditioned which could be important as Mangalore could get very sultry. The other restaurant was New Taj Mahal cafe in Kodailbail. It's a no-frill restaurant where there is no menu card. On zomato.com , people had reviewed the waiters as being very rude, but luckily our waiter was very sweet and even gave suggestions and explained the dishes. I had done some research on traditional Mangalorean cuisine so I knew what to ask for. Or else they would just recommend dosa and idli in the absence of a menu card. Other recommendations for traditional vegetarian Mangalorean cuisine which we got from the locals but couldn't visit were Janata Deluxe, Woodlands, Ayodhya and Kudla Rasa Prakash! Will surely visit these on my next trip if there is!!
