Food walks take on a new avatar

Foodie groups in the city are finding new ways to stay in touch and share their passion

The city is known for its love for food and drinks. But the lockdown made it hard for people to meet, especially food walks in the city.

Nevertheless, food group members are finding new ways to stay in touch with each other and share their love for food.

Virtual meet ups

Bengaluru Biryani Club has over 36,000 followers on Facebook and used to meet regularly before the lockdown. Every year for Eid, the team would meet early in the morning to relish delicious biryani.

This year, they had to plan a virtual meetup. Vinay Nagaraju, one of the core member of the group, told Metrolife that about 150 people participated in the virtual meet on Zoom.

He explains, “We customised a Ramzan food thali from a restaurant in the city and had it delivered to the 150 participants. We came on Zoom and had a dining party.”
Last week, they had a surprise biryani meeting where 75 people participated. “There were a few options for the type of biryani people wanted and that was delivered to them. This time, we just shared each of our inputs on the WhatsApp group,” says Vinay.

He says the group is planning for a physical meeting, but the logistics are still being worked out. “The government doesn’t allow more than 50 people to gather in any case. And there aren’t too many places where 30 people can go to eat while maintaining social distancing. We will need to find a bigger space to do that. More importantly, we’ll have to keep a track of the people who are coming and whether they are healthy,” he adds.

Helping smaller restaurants

Exploring new places in the city that serve South Indian food is the main goal for Bangalore Breakfast Walks group. Over the years, the group has expanded their walk to outside the city, in search of tatte idli, bath masale and ghee masala dosa, among others.

And now that dine-ins are allowed, the group feels that they should help out local restaurants.

Naveen Suresh, co-founder of the group, says, “Fourteen of us visited Vidyarthi Bhavan and Eat Repeat last week. It was a small meet up compared to the 30 to 35 people who regularly gathered before the lockdown.”

Everyone who attended the walk had to wear masks and carry the necessary safety gear with them. On June 27, the group will be exploring joints in Malleswaram.

Naveen says, “We will be including only 15 to 20 people on the walk. We had the same rule last time too but a few of them dropped out at the last minute. People are genuinely scared to come out. But we understand the struggle of the restaurateurs and want to help them out.”

They are encouraging only Malleswaram residents to join the walk so that it would be easier to manage the crowd.

What was it like?

Entrepreneur Karthik Satish who joined the Bangalore Breakfast Walk last week was scared to go at first, but the experience was worth it, he says.

Sharing his experience, he says, “Breakfast with your friends and like-minded people is a good way to start your day. Unlike earlier, we couldn’t hug each other or put our arms around each other’s shoulders. Even the group pictures were taken maintaining physical distance.”

Passersby were happy to see the group mingle while maintaining social distancing. “A lot of people came up to us and said that it’s nice to see a group hang out like this again. They felt confident that they could also do this with necessary safety measures,” says Karthik.