Thursday, March 23, 2006

Bunsoup, Pitsheera ?

This is something I always remember when someone asks a waiter "Kya kya hai?"
Few years back ( few is more than 10) , we used to go to Mangalore , our native place by bus. It was a tiring 24 hour journey, with occasional stops for evening Nashta, Dinner, Morning breakfast , lunch, tea-break, etc. I was travelling with my father, having a nice time.

Morning time, we stopped at Belgaum for breakfast , a regular halt place..Being only two of us, we could complete the morning oblutions quickly till the fellow travellers were still coming out of the bus. Then we sat down at a table for having breakfast. Being a roadside dhaba, and it was still in 90s there wasnt any Menu-card. So judging the area , Anna( my father ) asked him in Kannada what was available for breakfast.( Now I dont remember the exact words ) .. He replied
"puribhaji idlisambar bunsup pitusheera" Anna asked me my choice. I thought ' Puri bhaji kaal sanje khalli , Soup aata itle sakani nakka, ani pitsheera kasane makka gotna.. gottu nattile travel karatana khauche nakka ' I opted for Idli-sambar. Anna opted for same and ordered Idli sambar.
As we were waiting for the order to come up, Anna asked me why I did I choose Idli-sambar. I told him my thought process - I had eaten puri bhaji the earlier evening , I dint want to have "soup" in the morning and dint know what "pitsheera" was. So opted for Idli :-)

Anna started laughing at me leaving me puzzled. I asked him what was wrong with my thought? Meantime our Idli sambhar had come. As I started struggling with the spoons to eat idli (that was my favorite experiment -eating with spoons) I pestered on asking Annas reason for laughing.
He replied "
puribhaji idlisambar bunsup pitusheera mallyari puribhaji, idlisambar, bunsu, uppitu, sheera" and started off laughing again. For the uninitiated , Buns is a sweet puri made from maida, and my favourite dish. Uppitu is the upma and Sheera is well known. At this point, even I started off laughing when I realised that I had actually considered the 3 dishes as 2 .
I also felt a little bad that I had missed out on my favorite dish. Being young then, I dint have the capacity to have that too with the idli sambar.
But I still remember the "Bunsoup" and "Pitsheera" , when a waiter anywhere starts spilling out names of dishes in their trademark rap style.

PS: As I am posting this, Anna rectified me, it was Yellapur and not Belgaum. That says, he too hasnt forgotten the morning.

8 comments:

neo said...

reminds me of my childhood when i used to call idli as illi and thought tuppittu was also a dish.

Unknown said...

buns.............sigh.......long time since i had it.

Nagesh Pai said...

Kaupudupi.. i used to think its a cross breed of kapi and udupi.. but the buses chanting that would take you to Kaupu first and then to udupi

Anonymous said...

When you go in the Konkan Railway you have ppl coming with Ch(a)inesekafi..
U dunno where all these Chinese will go..

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of a peculiar habit i had as a kid... Used to always eat sada dosa no matter wat... Never tried any other dishes in hotel till the age of 15!!

Anonymous said...

Very funny.. I still do this, If the dish does not sound familiar, I do not try it:(

Varsha said...

hehe
I had once been to a hotel and Mama did the honours of ordering the food. Waiter said he was serving me "Mutton chicken". I was eagerly waiting for 2 dishes till I was told he had served me "Butter Chicken"

Prashant Prabhu said...

Bunsoup, Pitsheera ?
Wow ... this is real original...