People always say North Indian breakfast can be very heavy and oily. The aloo paratas with fresh buter, deep fried samosas and kachoris and sweet jalebis. But if you think about it, every region of the country has atleast one fatty breakfast item like puri, which is common all over India, and vadas in South India. But have breakfast at one of the dosa bandis in Hyderabad and their food will make the samosas, kachoris and butter aloo paratas seem like diet breakfast. This previous weekend I had a very early Saturday breakfast at not so widely known, yet very popular Lakshman ki bandi. The amount of butter eaten kept me energized till early morning Sunday!
Strategically located in front of a Hanuman temple in Nampally, Lakshman's gets a lot of family crowd. He has been around for 35 years serving lip-smacking breakfast at the same spot. Now there are a lot of things that Lakshman ki bandi does similar to Govind ki bandi in terms of the items offered but he has his own way of preparing these dishes. Let's taste!
We started with the butter idlis. Soft, hot idlis is doused with melted butter and a spicy karam podi is added. The karam podi, also called chutney podi or gunpowder, was more of a chilli and coriander seeds mix with very less chana-dal and is used in their dosas as well. The combination of the karam podi and the butter is amazing on the idli - similar to the idli for school lunches I grew up on.
Another idli item on the menu is the fried idli. The idli is basically fried in butter and topped with the karam podi and raw onions. The fried idlis weren't very crisp though. I like raw onions so I didn't mind them, but generally I wouldn't like raw onions served for breakfast. I would have preferred if they had sauted the onions a bit before adding them on the idli.
Their vada had a nice crispy outside and soft insides. But the revelation was the chutney. I love my vadas with chutney instead of sambhar. Crisp vadas need a spicy, juicy coconut chutney and Lakshman's nails it! Their spicy green chutney is a standard coconut-green chilli chutney made awesome with mint and coriander leaves. The vada-chutney taste was just headily spicy and delicious. Eat the chutney with the idlis and the dosas too!
They also have vada fry. The vadas are cut into two and pan fried on the tawa. Rest of the preparation is the same as the fried idli - with the karam podi and raw onions.
Lakshman's main dish is of course his dosa. He offers a variety of dosas like plain butter, onion, masala, upma and you can also mix and match with these toppings. I like my dosa as plain as possible so I asked for a butter onion dosa. There are two dosa tawas making dosas at the speed of 10 dosas/minute! Well not a minute but you know. Anyway, look at the generosity of the butter added to the dosa. That's the most amount of butter/ghee/oil I've ever seen put on a dosa. And that's exactly the reason why the resulting dosa is crunchy till the very last bite. They are thin, flaky, spicy (due to the karam podi added), crispy-crunchy dosa with an added texture of the onions and tomatoes. You can make it spicier with the aforementioned green chutney! I wish I had tried his upma dosa to see if they are as crispy as this but I have a feeling they are. Which makes Lakshman's dosa the crispiest bandi dosa I've eaten till now in Hyderabad.
I will always try to go to Lakshman ki bandi when I wake up early on a Saturday morning to eat ghee laden dosas in the old city (ie., Govind ki bandi). The only problem is Lakshman ki bandi is a little bit off track in Nampally but definitely not too confusing to find. So I strongly encourage you to try this place and be in crispy-crunchy heaven!
Location: Nampally
Timings: 7AM - 2PM
Cost for 2: Rs. 200
Taste: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 6/10
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