Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR)

The famous Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR) is a restaurant in central Bangalore that cannot be beat for fast, tasty, healthy pure veg food.

Almost as soon as you enter on the ground floor you walk through the kitchen – don’t step on the guy who is rolling out chapattis on a wooden board, while sitting on the floor – and don’t tip over any of the bubbling vats (yes, vats) of curry and sambar and rasam – before you climb the stairs to the first floor.  Room after room of long tables, filled with hungry people.  Waiters, barefoot and wearing a striped red shirt and a white dhoti, scurry from table to table with buckets of food.  Yes, buckets.  Ok, they are stainless steel buckets, with stainless steel shovels, er, ladles.  No ordering here – just sit down and soon a stainless steel platter lands in front of you, followed quickly by waiters who slop out ladles-full of delicious South Indian pure veg food.  I’m being a bit dramatic about the service, but that’s the way it is – and don’t get me wrong, the food is great.  Curries, salads, rice dishes, sambar, rasam, pickles and as many dosas as you can eat.  I was having extra helpings until I realized that they kept bringing more and more new things… I can recall at least 10 courses, plus dosas and ice cream and, to finish it all off, fresh paan.  Customers come and go, and the waiters scurry about wiping tables as fast as they can.  They must serve many hundreds a day, very efficient and very healthy and very tasty food.

Here are two other reviews; the first one seems to be about a different MTR location, and the second one has great photos of the food.

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