The Three Foodies !! - 1 - Andhra Bhavan Canteen, Central Secretariat- Delhi

After being idle for a month at delhi knowing my route from my guesthouse to the office, I wanted to explore the place, as I am at Delhi for the first time.

I had my two buddy friends a Keralite Tamilian and another Chennai Tamilian, who eat and crave for good food. So I will be posting our experience of hotels and street foods that we had in and around Delhi.

All these started as we wanted a reason to explore the place, you can say tourism but that will be a planned one. We wanted to roam around places and in the same do something useful out of it. So we started on a mission to find good South Indian foods across the places of Delhi.

So I am just going to explain the place, type of food they serve, what we had. My satisfaction to the money I paid and after effect of the food taken. I know there are many blogs out there giving in detail infomation and hotel owned web sites that explain their cuisine better.

This is just for the humor and the satisfaction to explain foodies culture from my end.

The first thing that comes to mind at Delhi for someone from Tamil nadu is the rice that you would have missed and the smell of sambar and rasam. The right place is the Andhra Bhavan(AB) Canteen run by the Andhra State house at Delhi.

The only servings offered is full south indian meals consisting of the Nellore Boiled Rice, A sambar, Rasam, Curry, Roti/poori, Pappu(Dhaal), Curd, Sweet. All these are vegetarian.

This is what a full meals plate in the AB canteen is served, the cost per plate is 100/-INR and they offer unlimited serving.

For a non-vegetarian they have the side dish as Chicken and Fish Fry/Masala costing 120/- to 150/-INR.

To reach this place, you can take a share auto from Central secretariat Metro station, the charge is nominal maximum of 20/person INR.

Once you reach the canteen, you will have to collect the token paying in advance for the food that you are going to have, Meals is common to all and side dish differs from order to order. There is no extra service tax or VAT to be paid. What amount is displayed on the menu is what you will have to pay.

The token has a number and is called by a manager and he will guide you to your seat. Please note I have not missed a month, its always rush on weekends and during night in the weekdays. So you will have to wait for minimum of twenty minutes to get your seats on any given day.

The canteen is closed on all public holidays. Also on Tuesdays.

Once you are at your seat another manager collects the bills or the recipient you had already paid in advance . He gives the nod to serve the food, only on his nod you get to have your food served.

The plate with a sweet and bowl curd already present is served first. Then you are served with the Curries and Pappu. Then you can have either roti/poori which is unlimited.

Once you are satisfied with poori/roti for starters, you can request the server to serve with boiled rice. In the mean time you will have two bowls filled with Sambar and Rasam respectively served.

Once the rice is served, its customary to start with Parupu Podi (Dhaal Powder) and Ghee with the rice at any Andhra Canteen. Then you can go on with you style of eating. The traditional Gongura Pickle is available a plenty for your taste.

You have your side dishes served separately. The best part of the food is so Spicy, I would recommend you to save the sweet for the last after you have curd.

The curd and sweet is limited, if you want extra then you will have to pay additional 20/-INR respectively for the same quantity.

On Sundays you get to have The famous Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani, but  this is only for the early bird that catches the prey. I remember my friends missing the Biryani at 1 30 PM IST. The Biryani is served only on Sundays.

The morning are served with Pongal and idli, and I think most people do not have or engage themselves for the breakfast at AB Canteen. The reason being everyone here misses the rice, sambar, rasam in their daily routine, so everyone prefers having their full meals either in afternoon or for Dinner.

The one thing that every South Indian at Delhi would love to get themselves killed for the food they serve. The reason being you do not get the southern taste in such a good quality, QUANTITY in that price.

There are Southern Chain of restaurants like the Famous Saravana Bhavan, The Sagars' but the cost of food is high and they serve only limited food.

So first place successfully explored and enjoyed is Andhra Bhavan Canteen- Central Secretariat, Delhi. Please note the canteen is closed on Tuesdays and all public Holidays. Also the rates mentioned are subject to change.

The plates:-

Menu Card:-

interiors:-

Bon Appetit,