Food is a medium that offers limitless possibilities for experimentation, and every city has its evergreen bakeries, innovative dishes, and experimental cuisine. We decided to delve into Bengaluru's foodie heart and trace some offbeat culinary delights.
The crunchy nippattu is one of Bengaluru 's best-known culinary secrets. The deep-fried salty nippattu masala and flat flour breads served with an assortment of onion, tomato, green chutney and sauces has always been popular in small food stalls in the city. The bun nippattu is one of the variants of nippattu masala and is said to have been created at Chetty’s Corner, a small bakery on Serpentine Road in Sheshadripuram.
The innovative snack is a fairly new invention, and food chronicler Mansoor A. believes it arrived in the city with the Shetty community. The owner of Chetty's Corner, Anil Shetty, backs this up, saying that the bun nippattu was born as an experiment, “Our nippattu is made from a recipe that has been passed down for generations. We created the bun nippattu in 1997, as an experiment. We used to serve nippattu masala and bun masala, and decided to combine the two. It is easily one of our best-selling items, with over 400 bun nippattus sold every day. It is a matter of pride for me every time someone talks about the bun nippattu as Karnataka’s answer to burgers and vada pav."
While Albert Bakery’s khova naan and bheja puff don’t share the exotic touch of the bun nippattu, they are still iconic in the city’s creative ingenuity. The 114-year-old baking joint has been dishing out some of the most imaginative delicacies crafted out of simple combinations of evening snacks. Dripping hot, molten khova in crispy, oven-baked pie, the khova naan will make any visit to the humble establishment on Mosque Road in Frazer Town a trip to paradise. On the other hand, the food joint reserves the highly unconventional bheja puff for the festive occasion of Ramadan. While the crunchy, flaky fresh puff exterior may seem to resemble any egg or chicken puff, it’s only when you bite into the mushy mutton brain inside that you realise the savoury treat the snack really contains. The creations of proprietor Nawab Jan, according to his son Mohammad Sabir Faizan, who runs the bakery with him, both delicacies are a tribute to the city’s undying spirit to experiment with food. While it started as a simple supplier of fresh hot buns and breads to the Cantonment settlement in the 1920s, Albert Bakery has evolved to strike a balance between traditional baking quality with modern culinary innovation.
In fact, transforming a staple snack into a business model is something that has become a trend of sorts, says Devyash Goel, who works for a Bengaluru-based mutual fund advisory firm. He cites Wow Momo and Goli Vada Pav as examples, and himself attempted something on a similar vein, by experimenting on the much-loved samosa. Through his now-defunct startup Killer Samosas, he had infused samosas with many new personalities, chicken tikka, jalapeno and cheese and even sweet varieties. "The samosa has massive appeal across the Northern belt of the country, usually sells in large numbers and there was no organised attempt at marketing it, which is why we chose it. We worked with a food consultant and realised that the smaller cocktail samosas leant themselves to Continental flavours, and worked well for parties and official events. It was a concept that worked well for small form Quick Service Restaurants (QSR)."
Though the venture was a success and soon turned profitable, Killer Samosas is an example of how great ideas in food suffered due to the negative trends in food and food-tech startups last year. "Our proof of concept was a success but due to the slowdown in the food sector, investors were wary, and we decided to fold as the personal milestones were met," says Devyash, adding "It just goes to show that there is a market for our home-grown flavours, and we don't always need to import a foreign palate to satisfy our tastes."
Meanwhile, on HSR Layout's 18th Cross Road, Natesan K. Kumar runs a small food cart that sells omelettes. A chef with the experience of having worked abroad, Natesan, who is new to Bengaluru and wanted to make a name for himself in the city's bustling food scene, decided he'd start with something everyone could relate to - eggs. However, he went on to put his own spin on the omelette, and Egg Factor, which is what he calls his joint, serves unconventional varieties like goat brain omelette, mutton and pepper fry omelette, oatmeal omelettes and more. "Everybody knows the omelette," says Natesan, "So I thought rather than making fried egg and sunny side up I should take it to the next level. I specialise in varieties like the chicken and cheese and chilli garlic prawn omelettes. The idea is to take the omelette from a starter and elevate it to main course level." Natesan, who changes the menu regularly and experiments with healthier options like oatmeal and bitter gourd, has a Facebook page where he routinely posts updates to the menu.
Moving on from the exotic to the unconventional, it was a chance conversation and a desire to try something new that resulted in Rathan Naidu and his friends selling Bacon Jam at the Cheatz Bakery in Vinayakanagar. Rathan says, "We loved bacon and were thinking of ways to make it a regular part of our food. We added caramel to make it sweeter, hired a food scientist and devised a recipe that is a trade secret. Our initial preparations were mostly sweet, but we have formulated new spreads that work as a savoury item as well. Our bacon butter, for example, is a huge favourite among schoolchildren."
He adds, "The response to the jam was huge. We received orders from across the city and are looking to expand online and make the jams available in all the metros. Bengaluru is a city that loves innovation in food and that's the reason something as unique as bacon jam has become so popular here."
A slice of history here, a bite of the future there. As the personality of the city evolves, so does its food. Dig in!
