During my recent pilgrimage, three of my four meals were at temples – two at the Horanadu temple and one at Sringeri. For the fourth meal, we took a conscious decision that a temple meal may not be suitable for an overnight bus journey on a bumpy road, so we ate at a restaurant.
Category: food
SLV Banashankari 2nd Stage
Around this time last year, I was doing a series of blog posts on delivery and revenue management practices in restaurants in Bangalore. My apologies for not updating on that series for so long.
This morning I had my breakfast at SLV in Banashankari 2nd stage (near the BDA complex; opposite the park next to the complex). Despite being within 200 metres of my school, I don’t particularly remember going here too often. This is one of the very old-school darshinis – for a long time, these guys made no dosas. Even the last time I went there (about a year back), they served only idli, vada, kesari bhath and khara bhath. Today, however, I noticed that they were also making masala dosa.
Rice prices
Recently, Tyler Cowen wrote in the New York Times saying that lack of free trade in rice and growing protectionism is not a good thing from the long-term perspective.
IAS Officer Gulzar Natarajan (now with the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation) took him on and elaborated as to why protectionism might be necessary.
I left the following comment on Gulzar’s blog. Given that I’m not blogging much nowadays, and I almost wrote an essay over there, I reproduce here that comment in full.
“trade” doesn’t necessarily mean foreign trade. it can also stand for trade within the country. and this is essential in order to “send out the right signals”.
basic thing is that we need to ensure that farmers receive a fair price for the rice they grow. given that the total demand for rice is increasing, it is only fair that the farmer sees this increasing demand by way of higher rice prices. higher rice prices (as realized by hte farmer) will lead to increase in production which can combat the growign demand.
international trade is one thing. the bigger problem lies with the procurement of goods such as rice by the governments. a number of countries don’t allow the farmer to sell to the open market. procurement is highly controlled, and despite the rising prices, the farmer gets none of it. and thus has no incentive to grow more.
yes, a country might ban exports because it feels that the rice available is enough only to feed its own population. however, this shouldn’t be done at the farmers’ cost. and they should be able to see the right demand for the commodity so that they can adjust.
Coffee pricing at Chalukya
The pricing of coffee at the Samrat restaurant (part of Hotel Chalukya on Race Course Road) is interesting. This is a popular old restaurant, and being in an area full of government offices, is perennially crowded (despite its large size). It is a sit-down kind of restaurant, though you might have to share a table with strangers if you’ve gone in a group of less than four.
Coffee segmentation and take away and food courts
I really like the way the coffee market in India is segmented. You have a clear distinction of cafe and coffee shop. If you just want a quick tasty caffeine kick, you just go to one of the cafes (Darshini types) and for some 6-7 rupees you’ll get excellent steaming and strong filter coffee. However, there is only standing room there and you can’t really hang around.
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The Barista Way
The Barista outlet outside Barton centre on M G Road seems to have come up with an excellent way in order to improve their “table turnovers”. They simply play loud and jarring music in order to make the stay as unpleasant as possible for the customers. And new ones keep pouring in so they are able to rake in a larger base on which to spread their enormous fixed costs (rent)!
Vidyarthi Bhavan seems to have got it right
Recently, I had written that the old restaurants in Bangalore need to cash in on their loyalty factor and make use of the inelastic demand in order to remain profitable. Vidyarthi Bhavan in Gandhi Bazaar seems to have gotten it right, at least partially. Of course, they remain closed for lunch and dinner, and on Fridays, thus not making full use of the “capital”, but they seem to be pricing well.
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Saving the old “hotels”
Recently, an article on the CNN-IBN site about old eateries in Bangalore shutting shop made its way into my inbox a number of times. Read it the first time, and put a “well left” on all subsequent occasions. And recently, in response to some other totally unrelated post, someone wanted me to comment on it.
initially i thought it’s some arbit stupid reform-bashing left-wing article, so replying to it won’t make much sense. However, fact is that a few of these golden oldies are closing down, so I thought it does make sense to put in my two naya paise.
two-dimensional food
One big problem that the freight industry faces is that cargo has at least two dimensions – volume and weight, and there are constraints on both axes which need to be taken care of. This is the most basic model, since you can look at 3 dimensions of volume, orientation, and a host of other “dimension”.
Similarly, food also has two dimensions – volume and calories. You can either have “rich” food or you can eat lots of “normal” food. “Rich” foods include stuff like red meat, cheese, chocolate and the like.
Now the typical indian vegetarian strategy is to eat lots of low-calorie food. We eat lots of rice. Lots of rotis. We eat “pet bhar ke” (stomach full). And most of the food we eat is of the nature that if you eat until your stomach is full, you will ingest the appropriate number of calories.
So this indian vegetarian goes to London and sees people having one sandwich for lunch. It doesn’t fill his stomach, so he has two, unmindful that he is ingesting extra calories. One pasta doesn’t fill his huge tummy, so he has two. He doesn’t care for the calories he is putting on, he eats as long as his stomach feels empty.
Two months later he comes back to India with a paunch. He hasn’t been able to get rid of it even after a year.
The drink of the gods…
It was in 1997, I think, around the beginning of the technology boom that V G Siddhartha started his first coffee shop on Brigade Road in Bangalore. He offered a variety of premium coffees, along with a number of dessert offerings. As an added incentive, he installed a few computers with internet in the shop, and allowed people to browse the web on a per-hour charge.