Serving Bangalore’s best Butter Masale Dose

If you were to do a ranking of Masale Dose in different restaurants in Bangalore, I would say that the clear winner would be the one served at The Restaurant Formerly Known as Central Tiffin Room (TRFKACTR, now known as Shree Sagar). Soaked in ghee (melted butter), extremely crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, and served with two awesome chutneys, it is an experience every visitor to Bangalore must experience (Warning: Not good for your lipid profile, though). Except if you go on a Sunday morning.

The first time I visited TRFKACTR was on a Sunday morning in early 2010. While I was quite impressed by the product itself, I wasn’t so impressed by the ambiance and the operations. It was a Sunday morning and the restaurant was crowded. People were waiting around all over the place waiting to get a seat. Waiters would do nothing to assist you to get a table. And once seated, service was inefficient and slow – the waiters didn’t show any urgency given the size of the crowd at hand. It would remain my last visit to TRFKACTR in close to two years.

And then I shifted my residence, and moved to a house within two kilometres of TRFKACTR . I’ve since visited the restaurant several times (I’ve lost count), and have come away impressed each time. On none of my subsequent visits have I had any complaints about the service and operations, either. I’ve got a table immediately (though usually shared with strangers, as is the practice in such restaurants), been relieved that the waiters are actually not in a hurry and leisurely enjoyed my Butter Masale Dose without being bothered by crowds waiting to grab my seat. In the process I’ve also understood why the waiters didn’t show any urgency on that crowded Sunday morning when I first visited.

I had breakfast at TRFKACTR this morning, and the restaurant looked like this:

 

While this is an extreme case – I went early on a drizzly morning, and the restaurant had just opened – the thing with TRFKACTR is that most of the time it runs at or just below capacity. On any given day, as long as it is not a Sunday morning, you can expect to find a seat as soon as you visit the restaurant. You get served at a leisurely pace (though not too leisurely – this restaurant relies on high table turnover), and can eat in peace.

We need to recognize that “business as usual” in TRFKACTR involves the restaurant running at or close to capacity, and the operations at the restaurant have been optimized for this. That operations are stretched on a Sunday morning is not bad planning by the restaurant – it is a conscious decision by the restaurant that the crowds are a once-in-a-week occurrence and they will not optimize for that. While it might make sense to learn and plan for a different set of procedures on Sunday morning, we need to keep in mind that kitchen and table capacity are limited (slow service at the table on my first visit was perhaps due to a constraint on kitchen capacity) and differential pricing for Sundays is unlikely to go down well with customers.

Instead, what has happened is that customers (the regulars, at least) have learnt that the restaurant is really crowded on Sunday mornings and have shifted their gratification via Butter Masale Dose to other days. It is very likely that a majority the crowd that still comes to the restaurant on a Sunday morning consists of “tourists” – non-regulars who want to see what the restaurant is like.

PS: I’ve visited the restaurant once again on a Sunday morning after that initial visit. I had gone alone, but found a seat immediately. It is a possibility that my perception that the restaurant is really crowded on all Sunday mornings suffers from small sample bias.

Indigo’s Food Policy

My last few flights on Indigo Airlines have not been pleasant, at least from a food perspective. It is said about the airline that they put a great amount of thought into each of their processes, but while it might have been working earlier (I used to positively prefer Indigo’s food experience a while back) of late it doesn’t seem to be doing too well.

Firstly, I don’t have a problem with the food itself. I most definitely prefer Indigo’s cold sandwiches and Real Activ fruit juice to the reheated omelette/pulao that Jet Airways serves. It is much lighter on the stomach and feels healthier, and doesn’t give you that usual bad aftertaste of “airline food”. I also understand that it makes sense from the company’s perspective, since the lack of hot food reduces their cost of serving it and also makes the plane easier to clean.

The problem, however, is with the process. Firstly, Indigo has these “corporate program customers” (I’ve never understood how to get into one of these), whose meal is pre-paid. So you have stewardesses walking around with printouts to know who is eligible for a free meal. I’ve also noticed some kind of priority in terms of service – that the corporate program customers are served before others (which is logical, since they’ve already paid), which disrupts the flow.

Then there is the problem of cash management. For whatever reasons the price points are not in multiples of 50 (sandwiches cost Rs. 170, fruit juice Rs. 70), so change management (!!) is a huge problem. While they have credit card machines they don’t work uniformly, and end up causing further delays.

The biggest issue, however, is the choice! For probably good reason Indigo serves a variety of meals, enough variety that the menu runs up to a full page in their in flight “retail therapy magazine”. There are two problems that result from this – firstly, there is a problem of inventory. When you offer so much choice, how much of each type do you carry? I know there must be some science going into how many packets of ready-to-make Uppit they carry and how many chicken sandwiches. However, on days when I’m (unfortunately from a food perspective) seated in the vicinity of Row 14 or Row 30, it is reasonably unlikely that I don’t end up getting my preferred choice.

The second problem with the variety in food is the time lost in decision-making. “Give me a chicken sandwich. Oh, it isn’t there? Then give me biryani! Oh, but that’s a Ramen kind of thing? No I don’t want that. Give me cashew nuts. Not pepper flavour, give me chilli”. The amount of time it takes for a passenger on Indigo to decide on what to eat is significantly more than the corresponding time it takes for a passenger in a so-called full-service carrier (veg/non-veg). Again, it doesn’t help (from this perspective), that an Indigo flight operates with four stewards, as opposed to six in a “full-service” carrier of the same size.

Overall, it makes the entire process of ordering for, paying and getting a meal rather unpleasant for significant proportions of passengers. My solution to this would be two-fold. Firstly, include the cost of the meal in every ticket. The current cost of an Indigo meal is Rs. 240 (170 for sandwich, 70 for juice). With economies of scale (everyone ordering a meal) I’m sure this can be brought down to about Rs. 200. When I’m paying Rs. 5000 for a flight, I wouldn’t mind the extra Rs. 200. I may not eat (note that half the time I fly Jet I don’t eat), but the point here is that given the brand Indigo has built I may not change my decision on flying Indigo because it costs Rs. 200 more.

The second idea is to drastically reduce the choice. Yes,  I know that might end up pissing off some customers who have their own favourites from the Indigo menu (mine is spinach-corn-cheese sandwich) but it makes the logistics much easier to handle. Imagine having just two choices of sandwich and two choices of juice (and no more, maybe less) and you think of how much quicker the service will get then. Going even more drastic is also an option (this is something Jetlite used to do in 2008, and I’ve noticed the same with Turkish Airline’s low-cost brand Anadolujet). Give absolutely no choice and just deposit one sandwich and one can of juice on every single tray-table. They could even.

The point of this post is that uncertainty hurts, and sometimes even those that it is intended to benefit. The choice in the Indigo menu is meant to be a boon for the passengers, but it has significant costs attached – in terms of availability and timeliness.

PS: There are no good food stalls in the airport terminal (Mumbai 1B) also that one can peacefully carry on to flights. Last two times I carried muffins from Cafe Coffee Day and Cafeccino respectively and both were downright horrible. I miss Delhi’s terminal 1D and the double chocolate chip muffin at the Costa there.

Minimum Support Prices

In India, we have this concept of “Minimum Support Price” for agricultural commodities. It is basically an unlimited put option written by the Government in order to protect farmers against not getting “appropriate remuneration” for their produce. In that sense it can be thought of as an implicit subsidy towards agriculture. There is merit in the argument in favour of such a measure – agriculture is a fundamentally high risk business and in the absence of such safety nets, not enough people might take the risk to sow a particular crop, leading to shortages.

On the other hand, it can be distortionary too. If the MSP is set too high, it can lead to a glut in that particular crop in that year, at the cost of other crops, leading to shortages in the latter. Hence, it is a tool that is necessary but one that should be used with care.

Now, the MSP has to be set in advance – so the MSP for the 2013-14 season has already been set.  This is again a risky move but a necessary move – farmers need to know the minimum amount they can get for each crop before they make their sowing decision.

Source: Commision for Agricultural Costs and Prices
Source: Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices

The figure on shows the Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in the MSP of a few important agricultural commodities between 2007-08 and 2013-14. Notice that the CAGR is lowest for crops such as wheat or rice, and high for crops such as Tur Dal or Moong Dal. Under the current Public Distribution System (PDS), families below the poverty line get rice and wheat at subsidized rates, but not pulses. Note that I’m only mentioning facts and not trying to suggest any causation here.

Interestingly, the MSP for coarse grains such as Ragi and Bajra has also grown significantly faster than that of rice or wheat. Also note that prices of cotton and jute have grown rather slowly over the period of consideration.

Now, while this tells us by how much prices have changed in the last six years, it is also pertinent to see how the prices have changed – did the price rise consistently over the last 5-6 years or were there some discontinuities? The next figure tries to address this issue.

Source: Commision for Agricultural Costs and Prices
Source: Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices

The figure on the left here charts the actual year by year growth in the Minimum Support price of the crops under consideration. To me, two things jump out from this graph – apart from sugarcane, there was a steep increase in the minimum support prices of all commodities between 2007-8 and 2008-9. You might want to be reminded that India went to polls in the summer of 2009 and Maharashtra, a prime sugarcane growing state, went to polls in the winter of the same year. Again, I don’t want to claim any causation.

Then, from 2009 to 2012, minimum support prices of these commodities remained largely constant – perhaps compensating for the large jump from 2008 to 09? And then again there was a spike from 2012 to 2013. There is no such jump from 2013 to 2014, though. Note that the nation goes to the polls in 2014.

Tur and Moong dal, however, have seen a rather secular increase in prices in the last five-six years.

How the proposed Food Security Bill will affect the MSP is left as an exercise to the reader. Comments are open.

PS: Data that I’ve used for this post is available at the website of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices.

 

Fighterization of food

One of the topics that I’d introduced on my blog not so long ago was “fighterization“. The funda was basically about how professions that are inherently stud are “fighterzied” so that a larger number of people can participate in it, and a larger number of people can be served. In the original post, I had written about how strategy consulting has completely changed based on fighterization.

After that, I pointed out about how processes are set – my hypothesis being that the “process” is something that some stud would have followed, and which some people liked because of which it became a process. And more recently, I wrote about the fighterization of Carnatic music, which is an exception to the general rule. Classical music has not been fighterized so as to enable more people to participate, or to serve a larger market. It has naturally evolved this way.

And even more recently, I had talked about how “stud instructions” (which are looser, and more ‘principles based’) are inherently different from “fighter instructions” (which are basically a set of rules). Ravi, in a comment on Mohit‘s google reader shared items, said it’s like rule-based versus principles-based regulation.

Today I was reading this Vir Sanghvi piece on Lucknowi cuisine, which among other things talks about the fact that it is pulao that is made in Lucknow, and now biryani; and about the general declining standards at the Taj Lucknow. However, the part that caught my eye, which has resulted in this post with an ultra-long introduction was this statement:

The secret of good Lucknowi cooking, he said, is not the recipe. It is the hand. A chef has to know when to add what and depending on the water, the quality of the meat etc, it’s never exactly the same process. A great chef will have the confidence to improvise and to extract the maximum flavour from the ingredients.

This basically states that high-end cooking is basically a stud process. That the top chefs are studs, and can adapt their cooking and methods and styles to the ingredients and the atmosphere in order to churn out the best possible product.You might notice that most good cooks are this way. There is some bit of randomness or flexibility in the process that allows them to give out a superior product. And a possible reason why they may not be willing to give out their recipes even if they are not worried about their copyright is that the process of cooking is a stud process, and is hence not easily explained.

Publishing recipes is the attempt at fighterization of cooking. Each step is laid down in stone. Each ingredient needs to be exactly measured (apart from salt which is usually “to taste”). Each part of the process needs to be followed properly in the correct order. And if you do everything perfectly,  you will get the perfect standardized product.

Confession time. I’ve been in Gurgaon for 8 months and have yet to go to Old Delhi to eat (maybe I should make amends this saturday. if you want to join me, or in fact lead me, leave a comment). The only choley-bhature that I’ve had has been at Haldiram’s. And however well they attempt to make it, all they can churn out is the standardized “perfect” product. The “magic” that is supposed to be there in the food of Old Delhi is nowhere to be seen.

Taking an example close to home, my mother’s cooking can be broadly classified into two. One is the stuff that she has learnt from watching her mother and sisters cook. And she is great at making all of these – Bisibelebhath and masala dosa being her trademark dishes (most guests usually ask her to make one of these whenever we invite them home for a meal). She has learnt to make these things by watching. By trying and erring. And putting her personal touch to it. And she makes them really well.

On the other hand, there are these things that she makes by looking at recipes published in Women’s Era. Usually she messes them up. When she doesn’t, it’s standardized fare. She has learnt to cook them by a fighter process. Though I must mention that the closer the “special dish” is to traditional Kannadiga cooking (which she specializes in), the better it turns out.

Another example close to home. My own cooking. Certain things I’ve learnt to make by watching my mother cook. Certain other things I’ve learnt from this cookbook that my parents wrote for me before I went to England four years ago. And the quality of the stuff that I make, the taste in either case, etc. is markedly different.

So much about food. Coming to work, my day job involves fighterization too. Stock trading is supposed to be a stud process. And by trying to implement algorithmic trading, my company is trying to fighterize it. The company is not willing to take any half-measures in fighterization, so it is recruiting the ultimate fighter of ’em all – the computer – and teaching it to trade.

Preliminary reading on studs and fighters theory:

Studs and Fighters

Extending the studs and fighters theory

Weddings

I’m trying to understand the significance of attending another person’s wedding. It is very unlikely that you are going to add any significant value to the process, since the person who invited you is likely to be extremely busy with the process. Unless you know one of the main people involved in the wedding really well, there is a finite probability that your attendance might not be noted also (just in case the photographer is not diligent enough).

Of course, weddings give you the opportunity to network. Especially if it is a noisy south indian setting (I’ve attended one north indian wedding so far, and what put me off was the requirement to stay silent during the proceedings) or a reception. It is a good excuse for you to catch up with all those people who belonged to the same affiliation group as you and the person who invited you. It is a good opportunity to expand your social circle.

Back in the 1980s, when I was a kid, one of the great attractions of weddings was the food. Bisibelebath was a special item back then, as were the various “wedding special” sweets. Some of the more affluent folk would also offer ice cream for dessert (that has become a common thing now, especially for receptions). The food on its own was enough to make me look forward to weddings. Over time, the general quality of wedding food has dropped. And the general quality of food in restaurants has increased well at a faster rate. So you don’t need to go to a wedding for the food anymore.

Historically, I’ve been fairly social. I’ve usually attended all functions that I’ve been invited to, especially if it’s in the same city. I admit I haven’t really travelled too many times to attend weddings but done short trips (such as Bangalore-Mysore) occasionally. I’ve always calculated that the cost (time, travel, etc.) of attending a wedding is not much in terms of potential benefits in terms of networking, catching up, expanding circle, etc. Of course, I need to admit that over the last couple of years, NED has been part of the equation, and there have been a few occasions when I’ve worn a nice shirt and then backed off from going.

It is all fine when travel is local, where NED is perhaps the only thing that can tilt the balance in favour of not attending the wedding. When you live away, the whole equation changes. The cost of travelling goes up dramatically (in terms of time, money and inconvenience). The climb is especially steep if you live a flight away, rather than just a train journey away. What used to be borderline cases when the distance was small now dussenly become absolute noes. The obvious ayes become borderline cases. And in some cases obvious ayes become obvious noes. It is only when a wedding happens in your new city that what were obvious noes become obvious ayes.

Four months ago, my cousin (father’s brother’s daughter) got married in Bangalore. If I were in Bangalore, it would have been an emphatic aye. In fact, it’s likely that I’d’ve volunteered to take up a significant number of duties at that wedding. However, the way things turned out (my being in Gurgaon), it wasn’t tough to declare that as a noe. The work that I would’ve otherwise volunteered for suddenly became “work”, became a “cost”. Combined with a couple of other factors, it turned out to be a fairly obvious noe. And I don’t think anyone really minded.

It seems to be the season for friends to get married, especially juniors from IIMB. Two of them who have just got married to each other are having their reception tonight 100m away from my Bangalore house. A case that would have been an overwhelming yes, now become borderline. Remember that NED to travel varies with the travel-cost in a super-linear fashion, and I think it is that which has turned today’s case into a no. There have already been a few other weddings in the season for which I’ve convinced myself with a similar reason. And there are more.

So I ask myself once again – why should I attend someone’s wedding? I have so far been putting the obvious variables into my calculation – netwroking opportunity, goodwill, opportunity to catch up with people, side effects (a wedding in Bangalore is a good excuse for me to visit Bangalore, etc.), travel costs, chance of occurrence of NED, how much ‘work’ it will be, etc. and have been trying to base my decision on these.

Is there something I’ve missed out? Is there something else that I need to consider which might change the costs and benefits of going? Coming back to the more fundamental  question, why should I attend someone’s wedding?

Bangalore Trip

I’m going to Bangalore tomorrow evening. Will be back on Sunday afternoon. My mother will be accompanying me to Gurgaon then.

It seems like there is a lot of work to do during my short stay there. Apart from the usual meeting relatives and friends, I have some tonnes of offical work to do which I hadn’t been able to do before moving to Gurgaon.

I need to give a change of address request to my banks, my brokerage accounts, my credit card account, etc. I need to take advantage of this temporary high-interest period in order to renew my fixed deposits. There are some other agreements which I’ll need to get prepared and sign. I need to go to Premier Bookshop and clear out my coupons.

As if all this was not enough, my mother had told me on Sunday that my market entry might be happening and I might even be required to meet a potential investor. Thankfully (?) that deal has fallen through before it even began, so I’m spared of that trouble.

Then, there is food. Two aunts have invited me to their homes for a meal apiece, but apart from that I’ve asked my mother not to cook for me. I will be putting a visit to Shiok, for the first time since it reopened. I still haven’t decided upon the places where I’ll eat breakfast, but the Adigas in Jayanagar 8th Block and SN in JP Nagar 2nd phase seem to be the favourites. I’ll probably have idli-vada-dosa for lunch also on one of the days.

This is the first time in almost 40 years that my mother will be moving out of Bangalore for an extended period of time, so there are thousands of relatives who expect us to visit them. I don’t think we’ll be able to entertain most of them, but still a few visits will have to be made.

Then, there is the meeting friends bit. I’ve set up two sets of meetings already, and I’m not sure if I’ll have time for more. Nevertheless, I think I must be having some time early on Saturday evening (5 to 7 types). So if you don’t belong to either of the two sets that I’ve mentioned here (if you do belong to either of those sets, you already know it) and want to meet me, give me a call. I also need to mention here that I won’t have net access from tomorrow afternoon to Sunday evening.

All in all, it seems like I have planned for a fairly heavy schedule for this visit to Bangalore, my first since I moved to Gurgaon. And all this heavy activity is contingent upon one thing – the condition of my bike. I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with the schedule I’ve made for myself if I’m not able to use my bike. So please join me in praying that my bike is in good condition and won’t play truant during the length of my stay in Bangalore.

On Cooking

For a little over a month, I’ve been living alone. And since Gurgaon doesn’t offer terrific variety of options in terms of cuisine, I’ve been cooking. Actually, I’ve been having a combination of cuisines every day – breakfast is continental (cereal with milk), lunch is north indian (eat it at the office cafeteria) and dinner at home is south indian. This arrangement will last for a couple of weeks, after which my mother will be joining me here.

I’ve often received queries as to how I can find so much time to cook. Others say that time can be managed, but how I can find the enthu to cook. A fwe others advise me to not bother with this and to employ a cook. The reason I don’t take the last bit of advice is because I’m usually fussy about what I eat. And then, one month of Gurgaon meant that I was bored of North Indian food, and needed something else for dinner (and how many cooks can you find in Gurgaon who can cook something else?). There is one really good South Indian restaurant here, but I can’t keep going there everyday, can I?

What I do in order to get the time and enthu to cook is to employ concepts such as economies of scale and law of conservation of willpower. I’ve talked about the former two posts back, when I gave a possible reason for only South India having a well-defined breakfast cuisine. The latter can be found in a NY Times article written in april which I’ve linked to several times from here, and now don’t have the enthu to find the link.

The basic unit of South Indian cooking is rice. It is extremely easy to make, and requires you to spend not more than a sum total of five minutes in the kitchen. Hence, it can be easily prepared in the evening following a long and tiring day at work. the next most important item, curd, can be purchased off the shelf. I have pickles which I’d ordered from Sri Vidyabharathi Home Products in SringerI (blogged about it but too lazy to put link). However, rice, curd and pickles doesn’t make a complete meal. You also need sambar or rasam to go with that. And making that is a non-trivial process.

This is where economies of scale comes in. The amount of effort to make five litres of Sambar is only marginally greater than the amount of time taken to make 1 litre (you need to cut more vegetables). My fridge works quite well, and Sambar or Rasam, when stored the right way, can last for about two weeks. So you know what is to be done (actually my grad student friends in the US tell me that this is what they’ve been practicing for ages). Whenever you get the enthu to cook (we’ll come to this in a bit), you make enough to last a week. Only thing is that you shouldn’t have qualms about eating stuff that has been inside a fridge (if you are a strict observer of the maDi-mYlge-musare-enjil practices, you may not be willing to do this).

Speaking of enthu, this is where the law of conservation of willpower comes in. Cooking is a fairly mechanical process, and there isn’t any scope for creativity, especially if you are making “vanilla” products such as rice, rasam, sambar and curry. Hence, for someone like me who is more idea-oriented and not  execution-oriented, it can consume a lot of willpower. One attempt at cooking can be quite exhausting. So you better make sure you don’t spend all the energy that you get from eating in cooking the next meal.

My policy so far has been that I shouldn’t do any kind of major cooking more than once a day. By major cooking, I talk about processes that take more than 10 minutes of kitchen time (this excludes making rice, heating stuff, etc.) .I broke that rule today, and have ended up totally tired. However, as long as  I follow that rule, I know that sometime or the ohter i’m going to feel enthu and go into the kitchen. This wya, I dont’ end up spending too much will power when im in the kitchen. And I get to eat good food every day.

Why Breakfast is an integral part of South Indian cuisine and not in North Indian

I suppose the more perceptive of you would have noticed this – that breakfast forms an integral part of South Indian cuisine, while it is totally absent (apart from parathas) in the North. The more inquisitive of you would have asked yourselves this question, and would have perhaps asked some friends and relatives and acquaintances also. The luckier among you would have found some answers. I think I belong to this category, too. And I hereby share my theory with you.

The fundamental concept here is that South Indian food is predominantly rice-based while North Indian food is roti-based. Yes, you have the accompaniments – sambar and dry curry in the south, and dal and sabji in the north. But let us focus on the staple component here. Let us think back a few generations, when large joint families were the norm. Division of labour meant that most women would spend most of their time cooking.

Now, those of you who have cooked, or even observed someone cooking, would have noticed that the process of cooking rice is “scalable”. On the part of the cook, cooking 10 kilos of rice takes only marginally greater effort compared to cooking 1 kilo of rice. On the other hand, rotis are non-scalable. There are minor economies of scale in terms of time taken to get the stove going, but the amount of effort involved in cooking is directly proportional to the number of rotis to be made. Roti-making is thus non-scalable. Also, observe that roti-making is high-involvement. It requires the undivided attention of a cook. On the other hand, you can just set rice to boil, and go sing a song while it gets cooked.

So the funda here is that given the non-scalable process of making rotis, whenever there were large families involved, North Indian women would have to spend a large part of their time making rotis. The long and tedious process meant that women had little time left over after cooking lunch and dinner. Contrast this with the rice-eating South, where due to the scalable process, women had a lot more free time compared to their Northern counterparts.

Another thing we need to remember here is that rice is more easily digestible than wheat, and hence doesn’t “last as long”. Hence, the rice-eater will need to eat at more regular intervals as compared to the wheat-eater. The wheat-eater can easily survive on two meals a day, but this is not the case for the rice-eater. There is the need for that one extra meal.

So, people, this is why breakfast, which is an integral part of South Indian cuisine, is practically absent in the North. There was demand – rice-eating south indians couldn’t survive on two meals a day. There was also the requirement for variety, for one couldn’t eat the same thing thrice a day. And there was supply – the free time the South Indian woman had, thanks to the scalable process she adopted for making lunch and dinner. This explains why South Indians evolved such an excellent breakfast cuisine, while people in the North eat bread.