The Janatha Hotel is one of Wilson Garden’s landmarks; located in an imposing building easily noticeable on the main road. It’s been in service for 43 years, says Hariprasad, whose family owns the enterprise.
To begin with, Janatha Hotel is strictly south Indian; there’s little else on the menu apart from a few variations of dosas, idlis and vadas. The system is simple: take a coupon and march to the kitchen, tell them exactly what you want and how you want it. The masala dosa and stuffed dosas are worth a try. These are crisp, aristocratically thin, unlike the dosa camps’ more rounded ones. It’s a marked difference, but essentially, both the hotel and camps provide the same thing.
The good thing about Janatha Hotel is that it provides what the dosa camps do not — and no, that’s not just a place to sit and eat in relative peace — the hotel has a wide choice of sweets, and also provides some pretty dessert, including kesari bhath.
The sambar they provide is much better than the norm, which is why one should ask for their vadas and idlis to be dripping in it. It’s thick, tangy and altogether wholesome, and just spiced enough to leave a tingle on the tongue.
A peculiarity about Janatha Hotel is that the enterprise has an offshoot, as it were: a smaller restaurant located on 11th Cross, owned by an uncle, says Hariprasad.
