Eatouts in Pondicherry

[Please read this post as an addendum to my earlier post: Give Time a Break: Pondicherry. That is a detailed one and more generic account of the trip, with more photographs.]

This is the final post in the series of posts on Pondicherry, and talks about various restaurants and eateries I could visit on the way and in Pondicherry.

Ghar Dhaba is a dhaba sans the rustic ambiance and an ideal place for breakfast. Around 70 kms and one hour out of Bangalore, placed by a BPCL petrol bunk, this is the only place to have proper breakfast while going to Pondicherry. Its speciality is South Indian food the Tamil way, but they have quite a few North Indian dishes too. I went for the mini-breakfast tray which was quite filling. It is a part of the Adyar Anand Bhavan chain, or A2B as popularly known, which has outlets in Chennai, Bangalore, Pondicherry, and Delhi too.

Salt and Pepper was the first restaurant we went in Pondicherry. Suggested by the receptionist at Ginger Hotel and branded as a '24-hour AC Executive restaurant', this was an utter disappointment. The ambiance and service was pretty third class, and the food was inpalatable, despite the fact that we were eating at 4:30 pm, having not eaten anything after the breakfast at 7:30 am, and driven all the way from Bangalore.

Le Café is a nice cafe midway on the Goubert Avenue with a breathtaking view of the expansive Bay of Bengal. You can sit on the ground floor or on the terrace or in the lawn, and hear the waves hitting the rocks and enjoy the cool breeze and hot coffee and snacks. The building the cafe is housed in was the Pondicherry harbor office during the French time. We had coffee in the evening and breakfast the next morning. There were quite a few local French people enjoying a lazy breakfast there with a book in hand.

Aruvi, the bar at the three-star Hotel Mass is just a normal bar that cuts you off from Pondicherry. That is why I am so against people visiting pubs and counting that as the 'liveliness' of a place. If you want to dilate your pupils in the darkness and shut your ears in the loud music of a pub/bar, why do you need to travel; Bangalore already has lot of them. We had anyways gone there because some of the others had wanted to, had some drinks and snacks, and skipped dinner.

Rendezvous Café Restaurant on Rue Suffren was a good-looking rooftop restaurant recommended by many people. However, this place was a disappointment too. First, it was quite expensive, not value for money basically. Two, the service was extremely bad. They were slow like anything. I had to shell out Rs 200 for a plate of boiled spaghetti and a bowl of tomato mushroom sauce, and had to wait for over an hour. I could have cooked better pasta in less than half the time. But yes, heard that seafood is quite good there, and there were quite a many French customers.

Baker Street on Bussy Street was the best part of the trip, after the drive, of course. This place was totally French, from the decor to the cuisines to the people, the furniture, tiles, crockery, everything. Though when we asked for something spicy and veg and were told they did not have anything. We, however, tried almost all pastries and eclairs. Floating island, Mille-feuilles (thousand leaves), fruit and chocolate éclairs were a few among the delicious delicacies we tried. A must visit for all Pondicherry tourists. We reached Bussy Street by chance when we strolled past MG Road in search of some souvenir. We were initially reluctant to enter because of the bad experience at Rendezvous that afternoon, but I am glad I was able to pursuade the others. I can still feel the taste in my mouth as I write this 10 days later. Unfortunately my camera battery had given up and I could not take any pictures of the lovely place. [Photo copyright: Neel]

Risque is one of the restaurants at the five star Hotel Promenade on Goubert Avenue. We tried North Indian cuisine for our last meal, and it was delicious and authentic. The ambiance was great, with a swimming pool by the side and the sea at an audible distance, and good crowd. This place was cheaper and faster and much better than the Rendezvous we had eaten at the same afternoon.

Hotel Auro Usha at Tiruvannamalai was again a chance find. We were considering very local roadside eateries for breakfast on the return journey when we discovered this place unexpectedly in front of some Ashram. Very good continental breakfast is served here, and we could see many foreigners eating out here. We had two dishes each, which was more than filling for the entire drive back to Bangalore.

Had I got some more time, I would have visited more restaurants and tried out some more authentic French cuisine. Maybe the next time when I visit Pondicherry...

Related posts:
         Give Time a Break: Pondicherry
         Bangalore to Pondicherry in an Alto

Bangalore to Pondicherry in an Alto

[Please read this post as an addendum to my previous post: Give Time a Break: Pondicherry. That is a detailed one and more generic account of the trip, and has some photos as well.]

Driving to and fro was more fun than I had expected, even though I had to do it single-handedly the entire time. The other three people in the car knew as much driving as they knew swimming; they had not entered the water at any beach at Pondicherry, and I had to do that alone too. Anyways, a third of the way comprises of NH7, which is an extremely well-built highway with picturesque green hills on the sides, and is a part of the Golden Quadrilateral. The next two-thirds is NH66, a two-lane undivided road by the countryside, but the traffic is very less and we had to slow down a bit only when we passed certain villages. The following is the best route from Bangalore to Pondicherry.


View Larger Map

The entire stretch is 308 km, measuring from the MG Road-Brigade Road junction in Bangalore to MG Road-Nehru Street Junction at Pondicherry. This can be broken down into seven(eight, if you want to drive along the East Coast Road) segments:

Map Icon	Stretch	Distance (km)	Surface/ Traffic	Top Speed	Remarks
	Bangalore-Hosur	39	Good/ Heavy	80	We started at 5:30 am to avoid all city traffic.
	Hosur-Krishnagiri	52	Excellent/ Average	130	Very good divided highway. Can drive above 100 consistently.
	Krishnagiri-Chengam	77	Good/ Average	110	NH66 starts, undivided, two-lane. Not much traffic though.
	Chengam-Tiruvannamalai	32	Average/ Meager	80	Patched roads that make you downshift frequently.
	Tiruvannamalai-Gingee	40	Good/ Meager	90	Passing through the crowded town Tiruvannamalai takes time.
	Gingee-Tindivanam	28	Good/ Meager	100	The Gingee Fort on the way is a good stop if it is not very hot.
	Tindivanam-Pondicherry	40	Good/ Heavy	70	Pay attention to the right turn, else you will enter the state highway.
Bangalore-Pondicherry		308
	Tindivanam-Marakkanam	33	Good/ Average	50	Single-laned SH134. Have to slow down for oncoming traffic.
	Marakkanam-Pondicherry	34	Good/ Meager	100	Drive on the ECR, fields on one side, Bay of Bengal on other.
Bangalore-Pondicherry		335

A third of the way comprises of NH7, which is an extremely well-built highway with picturesque green hills on the sides. I could consistently drive above 100 kmph on this highway after crossing Hosur, and touched a max of 130 in my Alto. The next two-thirds is NH66, a two-lane undivided road by the countryside, but the traffic is very less and we had to slow down a bit only when we passed certain very small villages.

At some stretches on NH66, you have patched roads, where you have to slow down a bit. Also, some farmers lay down haystack on the middle of the road to dry and crush by means of vehicles going over them. We also stopped at a very beautiful sunflower field by the side of NH66 near Chengam.

Tiruvannamalai is the largest town on the way. It has this Arunachaleswarar Temple, which is supposed to be quite a holy place. There is also a Ramana Maharishi Ashram, close to which is Hotel Auro Usha, where we had our breakfast on the way back. That was a very nice place, quite unexpected in a place like Tiruvannamalai. [Details about the restaurant in my next post: Eatouts in Pondicherry.]


Just 68 kms before Pondicherry is the Gingee Fort, a 9th century fort by the Chola dynasty. We got down to have some snaps, but did not climb up the fort because the sun was scorching hot and it looked like a high trek/climb. We could have done that on the return in the morning but Ashwin had to attend office. We stopped at a small Shiva temple instead, for 5 minutes or so.

We lost tracks at both the places you are liable to. First, after the Krishnagiri toll plaza, where you need to take a left from under the flyover. We had instead gone up the flyover, and 15 kms towards Salem. The second place was at Tindivanam, where you need to take a right from a roundabout atop a flyover, and remain on NH66. We instead went straight on SH134, which was a one-laned road with traffic from both sides. And the bitumen was thick enough, it was difficult to get down the road whenever a vehicle came from the opposite direction; a car and a bus could not parallely cross. After 33 kms of driving on this difficult stretch, we hit the East Coast Road at Markkanam, which was a pleasure to drive on with the Bay of Bengal on your left, and some fields (I thought it was paddy, don't know for sure) on the right. The second detour is highlighted in red in the above map.

The return drive was smooth and fast, and we did not get lost anywhere. It took us 7 hours (6 am to 1 pm), with only 5 hours of drive for 308 km, an hour of breakfast and another of various tea-breaks we had. An overall average of 60 was again higher than my expectations.

The drive was a very important and fun part of the trip. We enjoyed it, even without a music system; Pawan and Ashwin sang the entire way; and Chaitanya complained of all songs sounding the same. On the way back we had a fun game where Ashwin used to sing from the middle of a song and we had to guess the beginning. The drive was pleasant and comfortable, you could cruise at high speeds for a long time. I only wished I had a more powerful car.

Related posts:
         Give Time a Break: Pondicherry
         Eatouts in Pondicherry

Give Time a Break: Pondicherry

Giving time a break is what I was exactly doing last weekend, away from the din and congestion of Bangalore, away from this 15-inch screen I glare at for over 15 hours a day, away at this peaceful and passive retreat at the capital city of the eponymous Union Territory, often cited as La Côte d'Azur de l'Est (The French Reviera of the East).



We had been thinking of visit Puducherry from quite some time, but somebody or the other had some work every weekend. Three days of visiting beaches, driving, less-than-four-hours-sleeping, eating at French restaurants, and exploring the laid-back township could sum up the fun-filled tour I could have easily extended for two more days had I been given the choice. Beaches and restaurants were all we could go to. I had wanted to visit a few churches and maybe a museum, but very unlike me, I had not planned at all this time. I had hardly spent half an hour on google, and that too a month prior to the trip.

We went to three beaches. One, the rocky beach besides Goubert Avenue, a great walk very similar to Marine Drive, Mumbai. Two, the peaceful Auroville Beach, with no one there; I had taken my car almost on the beach and it had gotten stuck in the sand. We had planned to be there before sunrise but managed almost 15 minutes later. The water was good and cool, but no one else from our group entered despite my repeated come-on-at-least-taste-the-water yells from within the waves. The third beach was more populous and cleaner, where we had reached through a boat on the Chunnambur backwaters. The resort had scooting and speedboating too, but only two of the four of us could do that because we were short on time and they on scooters (they only had one actually).

We ate at a few French restaurants, about which I'll write another detailed post, but this amazing place called Baker's Street should find a mention here. Everything from the tiles to the furniture, the crockery to the delicacies, the owner to the visitors there was French. [Please refer to an elaborate post on the same: Eatouts in Pondicherry.]

We had stayed at Ginger Hotel the first day, quite a spic-and-spam place with excellent interiors and comfortable rooms. The hotel had free wifi internet and though we initially regretted none of us had brought our laptops, I am now glad none of us took one. The second night we moved to a cheaper Sea Side Guest House on the rocky beach, which was comfortable too, but not as swanky as Ginger. The worst part was that they would not let you after 11:15 pm, so we had to wind up our evening walk short.

The mode of local transportation is autos, who charge heavily. Rs 50 for a 2 km drive to the beach, and Rs 30 is the minimum fare. We learnt that the hard way when the auto we hired from Hotel Mass ran out of gas barely a km away. And the autowaala got hurt when one of us called him a cheater. Next we had to witness a drunk Chaitanya consoling the pony-tailed auto driver for 15 minutes. Quite fun was the following 20-minutes walk at midnight in that unknown place, before another auto skidded menacingly to stop in front of us and charged us 60 for a km of distance. This was the evening we had arrived; the next day we drove to wherever we went.

Driving to and fro was more fun than I had expected, even though I had to do it single-handedly the whole time. A third of the way comprises of NH7, which is an extremely well-built highway with picturesque green hills on the sides. I could consistently drive above 100 on this highway after crossing Hosur, and touched the max of 130 in my Alto. The next two-thirds is NH66, a two-lane undivided road by the countryside, but the traffic is very less and we had to slow down a bit only when we passed certain very small villages. [Please refer to my next post: Bangalore to Pondicherry in an Alto, a detailed one on the route and the drive.]

The aftereffects were very good too. We'd woken up before 5 all three days, and gone to bed not before 12-1. I was so tired that when I came back on Monday and went for an afternoon siesta at 4 pm, I ended up waking up 11 hours later, at 3 in the morning! That was the most undisturbed and satisfying sleep I've had in ages.

Overall a nice place where time actually seems to have taken a break. Do not expect Goa. You won’t find the crowd and the rush and pubs, which are anyways aplenty in Bangalore. An ideal place to spend some lazy lamhe with someone special and enjoy French delicacies. As I repeatedly kept saying while at Pondicherry, I would come here again, on my first outing after my honeymoon.

Related posts:
         Bangalore to Pondicherry in an Alto
         Eatouts in Pondicherry