Visit to Udipi

We had our SELCO annual day celebration at Udipi last week. It was a fun trip, full of joie de vivre kinds.... went in 3 buses so lots of nice singing till late at night. The event itself was also nice , with lots of inspiring talks and stories, and we had Shekhar Gupta, of the NDTV Walk the Talk fame as chief guest.

One little thing that stood out was the lighting of the lamp;  the traditional way of starting any function in the country.......it was done with not just the Deepam (oil lamp), but with a Solar lamp as well.......cute that was.

But what I really wanted to write about was the Udipi food......oh my god, it was one of the best ever vegetarian meals I've ever had, correction....best ever meals I've had!

kannadiga oota (meal) on the banana leaf

A lot of popular South Indian cuisine, including the ubiquitous and most popular Masala Dosa typically referred to as Udipi food, has its origin in this little town of Udipi, from where it also gets its name...Udipi food. 

Proper Udipi cooking adheres strictly to the Sattvik tradition of Indian vegetarian cuisine, using no onions or garlic, and is strictly vegetarian.

They use a lot of locally available ingredients, and I guess that gives it a naturally authentic taste. Specialities here were kosambari, jackfruit bajji, colocasia leaves ajadina (dry curry), ridge gourd chutney and the list goes on.

Above all, it made me realize, all over again, how much better the traditional system of serving meals is, as compared to the current day buffet system, with its queues and eating standing and not to speak of the heavy plates one is holding all through.

                                                That's Juhi and Eunice in the forefront and then the rest of us

In fact, those guys who serve seem to know exactly at what pace we eat; each course comes in its due course, and it's like they even know how much you need better than we do.  Satisfaction levels end of the meal? Uncomparable.

If I ever have to organize a personal function,  I'm definitely doing banana leaf meals :)