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Ballal was one of my favorite restaurants in early 2000. I think over the years, they have compromised on the quality. I have stopped visiting it.
I have always rated Konark very high. They still maintain the same standards. I am disappointed they stopped south Indian meals.
Which are some of the other good pure veg places in CBD areas?

Konark is very good, probably more value for money compared to Ballal where the prices have gone up while quality and even serving sizes have diminished. That's why our visits have also dwindled in last 2-3 years. We still like the place for nostalgic reasons though.

In the CBD areas, for veggie South Indian food maybe Ajanta is one you can try at least for some old world charm.

Also, for North Indian and some Indie multi-cuisine veggie food, the Shiv Sagar in Utility building, MG Road is very good and more spacious than their outlet off Commercial street (which also serves South Indian Tiffin items).

The same group also has London Curry near Race Course which has veggie fusion food and very good too.

Thanks for pointing these out. Never knew Ajanta is still around. Nostalgia for those worked in MG Road. Will definitely visit it.

Shiv Sagar/RS Shiv sagar is perhaps the only player still serious and expanding. Their MG road restaurant used to be Ullas refreshments. I guess they sold it to Shiv sagar. Ullas was a great place. Even hotel Brindavan closed down. I was a big fan of their banana leaf "unlimited" meals.

I stay near Phoenix mall, ITPL road, Mahadevapura, and so I dont have access to many of the old Bangalore restaurants easily. So either I need to visit mall based restaurants or venture out to independent joints. We are a family of 3, my 8 year old son, my wife and myself, and we used to dine out at least 2 times a week before the whole Covid situation.

Here is some feedback on a few restaurants I visited post the lockdown norms easing down

1) Oota / Wind mills craft works Both these restaurants are run by the total environment group,it's located in the ITPL area. The restaurant Oota offers local cuisine and most dishes are very good. Their donne biryani is just superb! Since the restaurants are one below one other, you have an option to cross order from both their menus. Its not cheap, for a family of 3, it would cost easily 2-3k, but surely one good place to visit on occasions.

2) Biergarten- This is a popular hangout, and again they serve very different cuisines. You will have a mixed menu offering, ranging from continental to Italian to even local kannadiga cuisines like neer dosa etc. However the overall quality and ambience seems to have come down after the lockdown.

3) Brilrams Balaji Bhavan, One of my favourite places to have decent South Indian food. And when I mean South Indian, I mean as close as I can get to my native Tamil Nadu taste buds, and this restaurant comes close. I have not visited post lock down, since they have closed the restaurant and now offer only self service.

4) Some absolutely overrated premium restaurants, Hard rock cafe and Nandos. I think both these restaurants purely function on some legacy branding and the food itself is absolutely pathetic.


In this part of the city, we really lack good South Indian food apart from the usual upahara sagar kind of restaurants, and no offence to anyone, but if you have grown up eating Hot idlis and that superb Sambar from Coimbatore Annapoorna, then one cannot just understand the Bangalore idlis and sweet sambar!

Imperial has opened a new outlet in Tilak Nagar Bannerghatta Road junction, bang opposite to Sagar Hospitals. Did anyone try out there?

Do they still maintain their taste in other outlets? Ah, their famous succulent kebabs.

There is an A2B at ITPL signal, its okish.

Early mornings the food is hot and good. Not sure if it is the covid thing but after 9:30 the food isnt that great, nor hot.( I am talking about ghee pongal here)

PS: I recently saw that they have opened an A2B outlet just before Attibelle bridge heading towards hosur direction. For those who plan long drive this is a good option.

I prefer the Attibelle one compared to ITPL for quality.(maybe because its newly openedstupid:)

Yes, it was a great place - it was sold to the Shubh Jewelers/Rajesh exports group.

Erstwhile Ulhas refreshments was nice, they shut down long before Shiv Sagar opened.

Another nice place was Santrupti restaurant inside hotel kamadhenu and that's the place where 1MG mall stands today.

In other news, visited Ballal today - very less crowd they've condensed the menu eliminating many dishes and have a single laminated sheet as their menu card. AC turned off and doors kept open, civil work done in the wash area with the glass doors removed and taps with sensors installed. Food was decent.

It's NOT across the board. The place I frequent dishes out piping hot and spicy sambar, which can clear your throat congestion in a jiffy. :)

I normally have Sunday breakfast with my elderly neighbour /mentor. We rotate between

Airlines - need to take the smaller car, great coffee, masala dosa and char bath

MTR St Marks Road - nice Ravi Ragi idly and masala dosa. Also the Kesri bath. Slightly crowded though

Ballal - Not bad, airy atmosphere

Konarak is not bad - great dosa's

Janadhana - pretty good if crowded

Chalukya - Good Idli/vadas

Most of the Bangalore breakfast joints are owned by folks from Udupi/Mangalore/Kundapura, where jaggery and coconut has a prominent place in almost every dish. its more to do with taste you are accustomed to. Even the Udupi idli's are different, they are grainier as compared to mushy/dense TN style idli. Bengaluru as such doesnot have authentic local cuisine but is strongly influenced by Udupi cuisine which is one of most preferred across Karnataka.

I 100% agree, Bangalore was good at some point with authentic southern food, but now in the quest to cater to every taste and sell to all demographics, the darshinis or sagars have totally become a waste of money with horrendous taste. They do serve chapati/roti but with chutney (!!!!!!) and saagu, they give dosa but utterly tasteless (no proper urad dal mix), their idlis are just compressed rice-upmas and the saagus off late are atrocious, just a mix of every vegetable possible. No contest here, Chennai decimates Bangalore handily, not even close. I paid 150 bucks for a dosa there but it was worth 300, ten times better than those here. Sambar to me was never meant to be sweet, sour and faintly spicy, but sweet never, that's like an ice-cream with chilli-powder topping.

Overall, A2B is acceptable for south food, though deteriorating by the day in terms of taste, a few authentic Tamil-run, Tamilian-cooked hotels are there in Indiranagar, Ulsoor and Koramangala and they are awesome but if you're going to the standing darshinis, even MTR or the famous Airlines hotel (we've eaten in all places dozens of times) expecting real southern taste, then you've another thing coming.

There was this fantastic, clean, very nicely run hotel in Sajjan-Rao circle called Brahmins Tiffin & Coffee, cheap, steaming hot idlis, Kannada-run but very neutral, authentic taste, on the very bland side as all Brahmins like it that way and I LOVED it. Don't go there, its demolished now, sadly.

Overall, the quality of food outlets in the city has just declined 100%, north food and chaats are dripping with oil, garam masala, green chillies and too much flavor, south food is tainted, western joints are Indianized with 100 tonnes of spice and oil (thank god for basic American-owned joints like Dominos and McD) etc. Overall I never understood Indian food, everyone wants mouth-burning hot, spicy, oily food served right out of the stove, and they end with with a molten hot lava of a tea or coffee :uncontrol oh god.

Bland food, served warm with a warm glass of tea or coffee in a steel tumbler, that's why home food is all one needs.

Bangalore has gone to the dogs on many fronts, food being one of them.

Two of the old Bangalore places that still stand are*

1. Vidyarthi Bhavan , Basavanagudi
2. Janatha Hotel , 18th cross, Malleshwaram.

TN and KA , share a lot of things ( except the language of course). Even in TN there are very many shades of Idli / Dosai (Dose if you are in KA). Jaggery being the main point of contention. TN strictly avoids it, Udupi savors it. Every one to their choice. Another bone of contention : Pongal. In TN it's called Ven Pongal and generally semi solid while in KA its a broth and don't get me started on chutney ( you need to ask for Getti Chutney in Bangalore to get what you get in TN ). So its all down to preferences and nothing is "Authentic " south indian.

* MTR on double road is still the oldest but for 550.00 per plate for oota, i would gladly skip it.

I kind of disagree. Hit Malleshwaram/Rajajinagar or the old Bangalore, there are a plenty of legendary south Indian outlets. CTR, Vidyarthi Bhavan, Maiyas, Raghvendra stores, Brahmins coffee bar, Brahmins thatte idly to name a few. Just few years back one could hardly find a Udupi restaurants in Whitefield area but now there are plenty. These are nowhere close to what we get in old Bangalore but some are decent(Eg:Udupi Park). If you are used to TN style South Indian, don't visit Darshini/Udupi chain as they have totally different taste and enjoy strong fan base too! On the flipside I took my in-laws to Annapoorani, they did not like the dosa or the chutney. Sambar was too spicy or more like tove(dal). As I see a lot in this region prefer chutney(me included) over Sambar and restaurants like Brahmins Coffee Bar/SLV don't even serve sambar!

I am from coastal Karnataka and frequent to TN/Andhra/kerala restaurants, but when it comes to Dosa(or Dose as it is called)- Nothing beats Bangalore style Masala Dose-like the one's in CTR, Bangalore Cafe, Vidyarthi Bhavan etc.

And that's how fusion food is born:D! Sorry, even though I agree with you I have to disagree on the premise. If we were younger, and I mean really young, and grew up with what we are despising, maybe there come a day when we would look back fondly at that bland, tasteless... The thing is there are no absolutes in tastes, and that's why someone said - one man's meat is another man's poison!

hey hey hey, stop running down my city (adopted city).

While your complaints are true to an extent, also remember that no other Indian city, barring Mumbai offers such a wide array of global cuisines as Bangalore does.

Yeah, Sambhar is horrible (for some, including me) and Chutneys are runny, but Sushi is available without going to a 5 star hotel, and so is reasonably priced Korean food.

And while we are talking about Whitefield, could someone tell me why are there so many Hot Ambur Biriyani shops all over the place, some even a few feet from each other. And is this biriyani good?
(haven't tried myself, trying to quit NV since a couple of years, so asking)

Any pointers in this area for - authentic jhaal-mudi, sabudana vada, Thai food ??

cheers
lazy