Rest : Madras Cafe
Loc : Matunga Circle, Central Bombay
Meal : Sunday Breakfast
The looney tunes gang met this past Sunday morning, after their second attempt at breakfast, the first having been cancelled due to lazy, late sleeping girls and errant maids.
Anyhow we made it to the legendary Madras Cafe, located in what was once the strong hold of south Indians in the city.
The area is peppered with plenty of udipi restaurants and the only way to survive is to be good.
By that line of reasoning the 6 restaurants within walking distance are all pretty good. One has to get in early because it gets crowded and stays that way.
The menu is hardcore south Indian, so you get a variety of idlis, dosas and dishes such as lemon rice and biselle bhat.
They also serve madras filter coffee, very cool stuff although it could have done with a little more sugar. I had 3 and it gave me a slightly elevated heart rate, so don't go too crazy.
Excellent, the vada itself was nothing great but the rasam was brilliant. Sour, hot and tangy, probably work better if you get it with Medu Vadas.
The Madras Dahi Misal was brilliant, dish of the day for me, i had to get two because it was passed around by my fellow diners. Spicy usal with the crunchy farsan and dahi to top it off, each element playing with the other. Brilliant.
The Raagi dosa is made with Raagi flour, personally i found it sourish with a coarse texture. Uninteresting but its fairly popular
The Mysore Sada was small and different from all the others i have had thus far. Not too bad though.
Some of the other things we had were butter idlis, tuppa dosa and a disgusting upma.
Bear in mind that the Dosas are flatter, thicker, smaller and pancake like, not the long, lean crunchy dosas most people are used to.
Overall, Madras cafe has been around forever and its because its a functional place, everyone goes there simply for the food and nothing else.
The ambiance is noisy, busy and rushed, its like walking into 1964, you sit where you can, we sat next to a family, that had to put up with our profane discussions. A little on the authentic side, it covers enough bases to give you a wide ranging experience with plenty to choose from.
Service is quick as a place like this thrives on quick turn arounds.
Food : 8/10
Service : 8/10
Damage : 1080 for 10
Cafe Madras
38 - II, Circle House, King's Circle, Matunga, Mumbai
Phone: 24014419
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5 comments:
I agree...they are all good. My personal favorite is Cafe Mysore.
Filter coffee or rather real filter coffee sounds so amazing. Out here in the US I've to make do with the instant version packets (just add water type) sold at the local Indian grocery stores. Still pretty good stuff.
@ Simran : need to do a proper comparison between the two. there was a plan to go for coffee to cafe mysore but we were just too full.
@ Sej : I have had filter coffee at a few restaurants on the East coast.
I went to madras cafe with some office folks too. It's a good group expereince where you can nibble on manyt things. 3 coffees??? wow... have you selpt since then
Been going there since I was a baby - this is truly soul food. Try the upma-avial combo and the nimbu pani (the latter comes with elaichi and kesar and is unlike any other)
Hands down better than Mysore Cafe.
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