Sometimes you enter a place because somebody recommends the food. Sometimes you enter because you have already made several immature jokes about its name and now feel morally obligated to find out whether the food is actually good.
The first time I went to Bangalore, I was with my friend Samarth. He told me there was a place called Hornadu Café where we could have breakfast.
I heard the name once. And obviously, my brain immediately stopped behaving like the brain of a responsible adult. I kept thinking that out of all the possible names in the world, somebody had confidently decided to name a café Hornadu.
But then the food arrived. And suddenly, the jokes became secondary.
There was idli, vada, puri and dosa. Proper South Indian breakfast food. Nothing fancy. Nothing unnecessarily complicated. Just warm plates arriving one after another, each one making us order something else because apparently we had forgotten the concept of being full.
But the Bisi Bele Bath was the real surprise. It was warm, comforting and full of flavour. The kind of breakfast that feels like somebody has quietly taken care of your morning before you have even properly understood the city.
On that trip, I ended up going to Hornadu Café three times.
Three breakfasts at the same place during your first visit to a city may sound slightly unadventurous. But sometimes you find something good and decide not to complicate it. You return to the same table. Order the same idli and vada. Add a dosa because you are on vacation and calories are temporarily a philosophical concept.
I think that is the best part of travelling with friends. A random recommendation slowly becomes a ritual. A place you had never heard of becomes one of the clearest memories of the trip.
Idli. Vada. Puri. Dosa. Bisi Bele Bath. And, of course, a café name which ensured that my sense of humour remained at the level of a twelve-year-old throughout the meal.
Three visits. Three breakfasts. And absolutely no regrets.