On the trail of the Thatte Idli
From a fringe dish, the humble Thatte Idli is now part of mainstream cuisine
After starting on March 27, 2019, the Times of Urbania (ToU) completed three years of issues today, on May 14, 2022. You are reading the one hundred and fifty-sixth issue of ToU. Our second-anniversary issue, Thane's New Food Mile, and third-anniversary issue, On the trail of the Shegaon Kachori, were both on food. So, in keeping with that tradition of highlighting a food destination, we cover one more lesser-known food in today's ToU.
Among Thane's tiny restaurants serving a niche, food is Govindam Thatte Idli. They have a small outlet at Bhoomi Acres' Palacia building near the Hiranandani Estate. As the eatery's name has Thatte Idli, their popular dish is also Thatte Idli or That (Plate) idli. Govindam has only two stand-and-eat tables and no seating. They encourage food deliveries and takeaways from their menu.
Govindam's unusual dish is the thatte idli which you don't easily find across Thane or elsewhere in the Mumbai region. They have the regular and the podi (chutney powder) versions of it, both of which they serve with ghee. You get Govindam's Thatte Idli in a pizza box-like container. Of the two types, I prefer the plain one, which they serve with chutney and sambar.
Govindam's Thatte Idli is soft and fluffy and a light meal. It equals two to three regular idlis that you eat at restaurants. The podi Idli has a layer of that powder on it. It melts in your mouth when you eat fresh and hot thatte idli. Govindam's plain Thatte Idli is very inexpensive and may cost you as much as the delivery charge at just sixty rupees. Govdinam doe serves other snacks like regular idlis, vadas, and dosas, but I recommend their soft and delicious thatte idlis for an unusual dish most Thane residents are unfamiliar with.
Govindam also serves Karnataka's famous Davangere Benne (Butter) Dosa though that dish is not easy to copy, and Govindam's version is very different from the original. So you are better off ordering Govindam's food at home. If you go to the restaurant, you can stand and eat at their tables or even eat in your car as they serve their food in cardboard boxes that double up as plates.
Thatte idli is a common dish in south Indian homes where families make it when they run out of the idli mold or must cater to large groups for which the regular idli making would take a lot of effort. However, thatte idli became popular after some iconic restaurants around Bangalore started serving it over the past three decades.
Two famous Thatte Idli restaurants are north of Bangalore and another south of that city. The northern one is the modest eatery Pavithra restaurant on Tumkur's outskirts and one of the most popular rest stops between Tumkur and Bangalore. The southern one is the Shiva Darshana at Bidadi, which competes with nearly a hundred other thatte idli restaurants on the Bengaluru – Mysuru highway.
Pavithra Hotel of Kyatasandra: Food Lovers TV YouTube channel has made a thirty-minute documentary, Thatte Idli Making and Tasting at Famous Pavithra Hotel That Serves Thousands of Idlis Every Day, which depicts the making of the dish. Pavithra caters to thousands of customers daily from 6.45 am till 10 pm, and patrons go there to dine on their famous thatte idli though the restaurant's masala dosa is also famous. You can imagine their popularity through the more than fifteen thousand reviews about them on Google Maps.
Pavithra's thatte idli recipe is different from those of homes or other restaurants. It relies on a batter with sixty percent urad dal and forty percent rice mixtures half boiled and full boiled rice. Thatte idli making is a three-day process at Pavithra, with the restaurant soaking the rice overnight, then grinding it and mixing it with the ground urad dal and using the batter on the third day for their fluffy thatte idlis.
The Pavithra idli maker is not like the ones you use at home or in restaurants. Instead, they have large aluminum vessels in which they heap plates of idli batter, avoiding the batter or the cooked idli from the lower plates touching the ones above. Pavithra also uses a wet cloth in each idli plate and pours the batter over the wet cloth, which prevents the idli from sticking to the plate and helps to separate it for serving to customers.
Their recipe's twists and exact steps help Pavithra deliver soft thatte idlis that they serve to thousands daily with a blob of butter and a red chutney that is not spicey. You can find customers at Pavithra any time of the day or night, with even buses stopping there for passengers to partake of the famous idlis of the restaurant.
Shiva Darshana: Bidadi is a small town en route to Mysuru from Bengaluru. It has become an industrial hub over the past few decades and houses a Toyota car manufacturing factory, among other businesses. Bidadi has also gained fame as the place to savor thatte idlis, and starting with a handful of restaurants that serve that dish now has close to a hundred Thatte Idli restaurants.
We profile one of the famous Bidadi thatte idli restaurants. The FoodLovers TV YouTube channel has made their video, The Most Popular BIDADI THATTE IDLI At Sri Shiva Darshana Shashi Hotel | Bangalore Mysore Highway. Like Pavithra, Shiva Darshana is also a famous restaurant that has garnered more than eight thousand ratings on Google Maps and attracts large crowds of travelers daily.
As each restaurant adds its twist to the recipe of a popular dish, the Shiva Darshan restaurant makes its thatte idli differently from others. They use a batter with twenty-five percent urad dal, and seventy-five percent boiled rice, soaking both for a few hours before grinding. Also, they use commercial idli steamers in their kitchen. Finally, they serve the thatte idli with red chutney and a vegetable side dish, Bombay Sagu, and an optional topping of butter for an extra charge. You can visit this restaurant on trips between Bengaluru and Mysuru.
Thatte idli is a fluffy idli variant and is now gaining recognition across India. In Karnataka, now even five-star hotels list the dish on their menu. Though we get the dish at the Pune Expressway to rest stops, I found the thatte idlis at such places not soft like Pavithra or Shiva Darshana.
Online recipes also list numerous tricks and twists to the regular idli recipe to convert it to a thatte idli one. For example, you frequently find tapioca (sago or sabudana) pearls as an ingredient to soften the plated dish.
If you are a Thane resident, you are better off ordering from Govindam Thatte Idli and savoring their simple, inexpensive dish at home. They operate for six hours in the morning and three and a half hours in the evening and do not open on Mondays.
Which idli joints do you recommend in Thane ? Apart from Govindam, of course .