Sanyog….The pleasure of rediscovering an old Udipi down town Panaji, check out the idli, sada rawa dosa, meal deal thali. I go for the painting on the wall too! The water bottles are special, the silver bottle offers cold water and the red bottle hot water
By Tara Narayan
EVERY now and again I fall in love with an Udipi eatery! That’s not surprising because as a working woman in Mumbai that was Bombay for 30 years, along with other colleagues, we haunted the Udipi eateries morning, noon and evening from down-town Colaba to Flora Fountain, around Churchgate and all the way to Sion-King’s Circle-Matunga and Chembur where there were several Udipis to thank one’s lucky stars for.
Living in hostels a 99% vegetarian like me was forever looking for a decent idli-upma breakfast or a rava masala dosa lunch or a medhuvada post tea-time before heading for “home” wherever it was. I can never be grateful enough to the Udipis of Mumbai be they in Vile Parle East or in posh Juhu! Some of course lose their old charm as they bloom into ridiculous upmarket stylish restaurants but with the usual Udipi fare selling at atrocious upmarket clientele.
WHEN I first came to Goa I looked for a Udipi for I got addicted to them long ago, for me they have been home away from home when it came to eating out. Naturally, I became a connoisseur and lover of Udipi eateries while working and growing up some more in the old Bombay. Next best were the Irani cafes of Bombay where one would live on “brun kadak pao-maska and chai” or omlet-brun – the brun nicely sliced and buttered with the old salty Polson’s butter for easy picking up and dipping in one’s cup of tea before savouring the flavour. I like to dip things in tea or coffee or soup!
WHEN I came to Goa to live in 2001-2002 it was an Udipi I first looked for, and only later discovered the charms of Goan eateries Café Real, Café Bhonsale, Café Tato, etc, down town capital city Panaji. Most often I’d for old faithful Kamat Hotel or the Sheetal eateries (one of which used to serve a most memorable Devanagari dosa but it has since shut down). Recently, I re-discovered an old favourite in Sanyog…it had become dreary over 30 something years, but when I stepped in after some gap of years last week, I was in for a real surprise.
This Udipi eatery downtown Panaji has metamorphosed a bit and to my delight I found their usual plate of idli has metamorphosed into this traditional katori-styled idli, steaming and soft. Real idli. Wow, flavorful too, along with very agreeable chutney and sambar. Already in love with the painting on the wall opposite me I returned the next day for a plain rava dosa – it came thin, crisp and inventive with julienne carrot flecks in it, the green chilli bits fresh and not rancid or burnt…if you’re asking me this is my favourite plain rava dosa in town, it’s more like a delicious savoury biscuit to live and so I found myself returning again, and again.
One lunch time I tried out the thali meal deal (Rs120) and thought, this is it. I could have this meal every day and be happy for the rest of the day on a water diet (overweight being a perennial problem with me). It’s rarely that I taste any genuine love in food but this time at Sanjog I think was tasting it. The three puri were wholesomely soft (not of maida clearly), the two sabzi – one dry and the other with gravy — worth an encore, as also the thin dal (not watery), and the cucumber relish had an interesting tirphal aroma enshrined it in…generous bowl of rice, curd, papad, pickle to eat (normally I ignore pickles served in thali meal deals but this time I snuggled the pickle in a bit of puri and enjoyed its subtle sour notes). In short this is a Rs120 thali meal to live for daily, value for money. I’d happily tiffin it home but for the fact that…oh never mind.
Then one day I fell for the pineapple sheera (Rs40) too and will happily recommend it. I asked the waiter here who normally explains things to me, who makes this food here? It’s a thank-you to one chef or home-spun cook called Ishwar (I haven’t said hello to him yet)! Sanyog has innovated judiciously and you may want to look at this range of appealing savoury crunchies up at a counter a la tempting boondi ladoo, Mysore paak, shankarpali, real gram flour sev, including a thicker Udipi version sev…which I think I’ll buy some other day. I find crunching up sev fine and using it as a cutlet cover makes for fine flavour (different from bread crumbs). And I will return to Sanyog for idli and filter coffee again and again, never mind that idli adds up to almost Rs50 now and the coffee to “Rs28.57” before CGST and SGST tax odd-ons.
(Sigh) Sometimes it’s as if nothing has changed and yet a lot has changed while the world moves into new normal and newer normal…I want to return to old, old normal! Normally, when eatery owners hike up menu rates, portions become miserly and quality miserable. But in the case of Sanyog, they may take a bow. Prices have upped but quality of food is sublime. Don’t believe me, go check out for yourself and at least in the case of idli and sada rava dosa you have to agree with me.
Eating out is rarely a 100% pleasure for a finicky soul but when I find that a one-time run to seed Udipi downtown Panaji has reinvented itself with utmost good manners, it deserves some humble gratitude and I can only hope that Mr Shanbhag won’t up prices again for a year at least now (this is why I hate to do honest food reviews of my kind). Udipi must remain respect its customers who are mostly from working class stock like me! But this is to say the country’s Udipis are salt of the earth eateries and I don’t know what I would have done without them in my 50 odd years of life and times in Bombay and India…has anyone written about the Udipis doing yeoman’s service in our urban metros?
COMING down to the other end of eating out where it is all money spent good, bad or ugly. A friend who’s going away from life in Goa invited me to the Fortune Miramar for dinner and I must say the good old days at the Fortune Miramar are more or less over, with the constant change over of staff I recognized nobody…anyway since the friend was staying there she ordered for me and I can tell you order the fish cutlets, they’re superlative, but ask for some mint chutney and real mint in it, not just lots of green chilli-coriander! Mint chutney must be mint chutney predominantly in my book.
The fish mineure was good as were the twin hefty baked potato which came crowned with oodles of mushroom sauce – too rich, nobody likes to eat such creamy, buttery, heavy meals at night. But we tried to do justice to it and I thought of a humble baked potato just laced with the French aioli … say a shake of olive oil, minced garlic, mixed Mediterranean herbs, lemon juice and freshly grated black pepper, can’t find such simplicity in baked potatoes. I suppose if the baked potato is going to cost a bomb they will jazz it up to the hilt and in the process one ends up eating more undesirable calories than one wants to. Still, on a bad day I would go to the Fortune Miramar to moon moon over Continental coffee with one of my few friends in Goa who is now going away to Delhi….otherwise give me an Udipi or better still Sanjog downtown Panaji, it’s a pity Udipis don’t stay open till midnight to serve the best coffee in the world and that is the Udipi filter coffee of down south India!
TEN BEST IN WORLD!
AFTER my recent feasting out I am tempted to sum up the best healthiest foods in the world. Begin with lemons as the healthiest. Next come spinach, garlic, beetroots, dark chocolate, lentils, raspberries, walnuts, salmon, avocado. Include these ten best in your daily eating habits and you may find youth anew, rescue yourself from a host of degenerative diseases so widespread in today’s sick world getting increasingly sicker!
I think healthcare is really death-care in mainstream medicine Allopathy – mostly the prescription of a lot of single compound drugs which doctors excel in prescribing with relish, but which may or may not suit you. All drugs suppress symptoms, work on the law of diminishing returns, and become addictive, will enslave you till you are no longer able to cope with life’s upswings and downswings until doomsday puts an end to it all and it’s goodbye cruel world.
A bit about lemons. Do you know that lemons are considered a powerfood and has strong anti- inflammatory properties, can even help inhibit cancer cells growth? Lemons protect liver and bowels with their natural organic vitamin C — so don’t knock them. Drink and eat a lemon daily in whatever au naturale way you wish!
Then spinach, superfood, rich in vitamin A, K and essential folate (very important for seniors); garlic, oldest “food is medicine,” inhibits bacteria, lowers cholesterol, blood pressure, powerful anti-inflammatory, eat daily. Beetroot, good brain food, lowers BP…has folate, magnesium, vitamin C. Dark chocolate – so romantic and justly so, high antioxidants, good for the heart, that’s why we gift chocolate to those we love…gift dark chocolate.
Coming to lentils – much loved in the Middle East and in India, centuries old food, make lentil soup, lentil dal, lentil salad, lentil side dishes. Raspberries, all berries really, are enshrined with goodness; walnuts are said to be as effective as olive oil in reducing inflammation and oxidation in arteries; eat eight walnuts daily; salmon has omega 3 fatty acids and said to reduce depression heart disease, cancer – hard to find salmon from clean waters though, a 3 oz serving is fine, protection from Alzeimer’s…has vitamin B12.
Finally, last but not the least of all, fall in love with avocados, often considered to be the Marmite of the fruit world – gives you monounsaturated fats, potassium, folate and virtamins K, C, B5, B6, E. Avocados are incredible nutritious food, best fat of them all. Eat avocado butter instead of dairy butter, dribble in lemon juice, bit rock salt, black pepper, raise a toast to life to be in the pink of health!