Sunday, November 02, 2008

Going Chinese in an Udupi

The only thing I look forward to eagerly (apart from exiting as quickly as possible) whenever I eat at an Udupi hotel is the scented saunf that comes with the bill. That pretty much sums up the way I feel about the food in Udupi hotels. With so many Irani joints in Hyderabad to fill me up when I am hungry I try to avoid eating at Udupi hotels except at gun point.

Nine times out of ten I cannot eat the stuff they serve. It is uniformly bland for my taste. It isn’t just the food but the waiters I have a problem with. The waiters in the Udupis make you feel unwelcome with the kind of snooty expressions they have on their faces, eyebrows raised and not a hint of a smile. The upmarket the hotel the more snooty they are. I guess they are specially trained not to smile at customers at any cost. Maybe they are afraid we would begin to ask for extra chutney or sambar if they smile, especially in Hyderabad. They all (from the waiter to the guy who sits at the cash counter) have that look that says it is a favor they are doing us by running an Udupi hotel. Any other hotel would be grateful for the customers for patronizing the hotel. Not Udupi guys.

However I must agree that they are some of the cleanest eating joints one can find in Hyderabad. Someone or the other is always wiping the floor when I am in an Udupi hotel. They could easily conduct surgeries on the floor in Udupi hotels. They have a fetish for cleanliness though I wish they show the same fetish when it comes to the food. They all seem to assume that just because they are all from the Udupi area anything they cook will turn out to be worth eating. Even Chinese fare.

I had lunch at the Shanbagh hotel in Basheerbagh with Raj on Saturday. For some reason we decided to try out some of the Chinese fare listed on the menu. Knowing well the way their regular stuff tastes I thought I had made a mistake ordering Chinese food in an Udupi hotel. An Udupi hotel isn’t exactly the place to get adventurous about food. Luckily there was nothing more adventurous than noodles on the menu so we went for soft noodles and fried noodles. I half expected them to bring Maggi noodles on a plate but we got what we asked for. But even after literally dousing the stuff with generous spoonfuls of the various sauces, the food did not appear to have any kind of taste.

Afraid that the guys, especially the cook, would get upset if we said anything about the food we quietly spooned it into our mouths. The Udupi hotels aren’t the sort of places where they ask you how the food was after you finish it. That’s probably because they too know how it is.

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