When I was working in ETV Kannada, I ended up being the only woman on the programming team. It took me a good year to break the ice with this male-dominated office, but once I managed to do that I was considered one of the guys. Lunch, every afternoon was a quest - and thanks to those guys I discovered the best that Gandhinagar and Majestic had to offer, from the seediest of places that offered spectacular food to the better known places frequented by Kannada filmdom. And so I discovered the joys of standing on the roadside at a hole-in-wall place where you got mutton/chicken biryani only if you got there at 12.45. You stand on the road and eat and then wash it down with a goli soda from next door. There was also these fabulous Andhra meals and biryanis at Annapurna, there was also this place called the Mess, which served home made meals on banana leaves in a place that looked like it would fall down at any minute. One of the pleasures I was introduced too, being all new to Bangalore then and its cuisine was the jolada roti oota or jowar roti meals. Had it at Kamath and Pai Refreshments and used to be a fanatic. Once I quit ETV, I just never got around going to those places and indulging myself again.

Here is the meal as it was presented. It started with a mix of fresh sticks of cucumber, carrot, radish and some spring onions. A handful of fresh methi leaves too were placed on the leaf. Loved the fact that nothing here looked faded or a little off. Every leaf on the sprigs of methi were fresh and full and the mini salad was freshly cut.

There was also the traditional chilli bajji of North Karnataka too that found its way to our leaf. Spicy but not the hell hounds having an BBQ on your tongue types.