Rama Nayak's Udipi Shri Krishna Boarding
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* This review dedicated to darling friend RJ who hails from Udupi and brother Davieboy who SAYS he hails from Udupi
Location:
Just opposite Matunga Station ( Mumbai's Mini Chennai)- Central Railway. The hotel is above the municipal market on the 1st floor. No need to get disheartened by the not-so-clean surroundings , I mean outside the market and around the building.
Ambience and Hygiene:
This is a Thaali-restaurant. ie. No a-la-carte. The typical udipi / south Indian menu.
The eating room on the first floor, is generally always filled, pretty neat and clean. There is a token system, one token for each Thaali.
People are seated in rows , which makes fast serving very easy. The kitchen has a board saying Come in an inspect for yourself, only you have to remove your footwear before you enter. This itself says a lot about the hygiene standards maintained. No left over food is ever served the next shift, or the next day. Freshness is the key factor here.
Food:
You can choose either the Leaf section or Plate section. In plate, all items except sambhar and rasam are limited, whereas in Leaf section- everything is unlimited (watch the calories here, and better loosen you belt before you sit down)
Once you are seated, the waiter who has been there since ages- smilingly places a leaf before you ( even in the leaf section, people who cannot manage to stop their rasams and sambars flowing out of the leaf can opt for a plate ). Then the stream of waiters place all items one by one on your leaf in the pre-assigned places.
At this point, I just recollect the way food is served at granny’s home. There are certain rules to be obeyed- if one is serving to a group of people sitting in a circle, one should always serve clockwise and never anti clockwise. I used to ask her “WHY SO?” and the answer I used to get was –Only in mourning gatherings is food served anti clockwise. May be another granny’s tale, or may be some scientific funda behind this…I don’t know yet ! Also she insists that vegetables served on right hand side of plate. Food is always eaten in a particular order, if chapattis are there on menu, then chapatti comes as first course, followed by Sambhar-rice, Rasam-rice and without eating curd-rice-a Tamil meal is considered incomplete.
Coming back to Udipi, 3 kinds of vegetables are served on top half of leaf, 2 dry veggies and 1 gravy vegetable. Dal and Sambhar are provided in Vaatis. You have the choice of eating pooris or chapattis, which are served fresh and hot as and when you ask.
Rice is served piping hot, first serving of rice to be eaten with sambhar ( Sambhar is nice and spicy-not the sweet one that you get with idli-dosa in other hotels, with chunks of pumpkin (white, yellow), drumsticks floating around.) .
Next course is rice with *Rasam.
Rasam is a kind of dal variant, more watery, spicy, can be prepared in several ways- there is Mysore Rasam which is spicier with coconut, Lemon rasam, Mango rasam, Kokum Rasam, Tomato Rasam (this is commonest), also there is Milagu rasam (pepper)- for those days when you are down with a cold, just those vapours are enough to open your nostrils, Garlic rasam – where pods of garlic are boiled in the simmering rasam- this is a common medicinal rasam given each day to women who have just delivered their babies or in the final stages of pregnancy- garlic is known to keep blood thin, and it prevents clotting and thickening of blood after labour-thereby preventing many complications.
In Udipi Hotel, different rasams are served on different days of the week. Here they more or less alternate between Mysore rasam ,and tomato rasam and kokum rasam on some days. Eating rasam-rice from the plantain leaf is an art by itself ( Im sure Gb will agree with me !!)
Finally, the meal is polished off with Curd Rice and some tangy mango pickle.
How do we leave aside the dessert. You have a choice from 4 – either have Mango juice, or Shrikhand, or Gulab Jamun and PAYASAM. You can have more than one if you pay extra for it. I generally opt for the mango juice in mango season, its light and has no milk in it-hence the name JUICE.
Forgot to mention about the Masala Mor (Chhass)- This is made by churning the Curd into butter milk with lots of water, adding crushed coriander leaves, green chillies and crushed ginger and salt ( I prefer rock salt)- amazing taste, good digestive properties and light.
Hey, you also get unlimited fried udad dal papads - I hear these are also freshly made every two days in the Udipi itself...but if you keep asking for more n more papads, the meal will no longer be 1500 calories, so all you wieght watchers-BEWARE
Damages
You must be wondering, so much food but at what cost, the best part is, they ask a very small price for all the fresh food they serve. Its Rs.40 for the Leaf (Unlimited) and Rs.16 for the plate (limited). I don’t know if the rates have been revised off late. Well, even if they have been, it would not be unreasonable in any case.
Some interesting points:
~|| Mumbai's oldest Udipi joint- established in 1942- pre-independence era.
~||The rice is directly brought from Chandrapur in truck loads
~||The wheat flour for the puris and chapatis is ground at the hotel itself and the vegetables purchased fresh each morning from Byculla market
~|| The whole meal is a fully balanced diet with appropriate portions of carbs,proteins and fats, total of around 1500 calories.
FINALLY…..
If you don’t care for class and show-off, and you enjoy simple authentic food, that’s easy on both stomach and wallet, then one visit to Rama nayak’s will be a different and pleasant experience. Just take care of the timings, so that you aren’t disappointed- Lunch is from 10.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. dinner 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.). Closed on Mondays.
My review would be incomplete without providing a link to a most wonderful write up on SAMBAR by GaneshB. Those of you who enjoyed reading this will love to read ''It's a SAMBAAR, lungi Uthake''-
https://mouthshut.com/readreview/35067-1.html
