CTR’s Benne Masale no longer the world’s best Masala Dosa?

                                                         I have always endorsed to everyone that the best place in the world to have Masala Dosa is in Bangalore & the best Dosa in Bangalore is the crispily-soft juicy Benne Masale at CTR (Sri Sagar) – Malleshwaram. I wasn’t the only one with this opinion. The certificates from Burrp & Radio city, have ‘officially’ given great credit to this 6 decade old, small yet famous joint’s Benne Masale. A quick ‘blog Search’ on the web shows CTR is getting many first timers even now & who are raving about it (Like 

this and this). But sadly, time seems to have done its transformation bit. L

                

                                    The first turn of steering on my opinion came a couple of months ago when my best friend was in town. He has been living out of the country since a couple of years & every time he was  in town we made it a point to pay a visit to CTR. We had fallen in love with their Dosa right since school days. This time after sweeping thru two Dosas he said “I feel the Dosa has lost quality, I don’t get the same old taste anymore, neither of the two I had tasted the same”. Even though in my mind I had the same feeling about the lost taste, I dismissed his opinion. I was thinking more on statistical lines & giving room for some Standard Error rate. Not all Dosas can be achieved of the same quality, there can & will be variations – I thought.

                Since then, everytime I was in CTR my mind involuntarily was running the rating scale, checking if the ‘World’s Best Masala Dosa’ credit was slipping out of CTR or not. Unfortunately, each time the result was what I dint want it to be. Last weekend broke all barriers though! I had hesitantly suggested the place for a few friends endorsing my ever favorite ‘Benne Masale’. Since Dosa takes time 

to come after the order was placed, We first had the usual stop gap ‘Mangalore Bajji’ and that was quite good & in the usual standards. The shocker was when the Dosa actually arrived. I know ‘Yellar Mane Dosenu thoothu’ and all that. But the ones at CTR always had smooth, clear, crispy, juicy, brownish golden outer surface. Almost as if it had just been polished to the last shine by a professional makeup artist. However what I got this day wasn’t the same, it was roasted to near charcoal & had many large holes! It was looking worse than a homemade Dosa. The usual crispy outside & soft inside feature was, ofcourse, not to be seen. Thanks to the deep roast. I just couldn’t accept the fact that it could be so bad. I even shamelessly dug into the plates of everyone who had come with me & had the same disappointment waving at me.

                Deeply saddened, disappointed & with hopelessness I left ‘Sri Sagar’ without even ordering a coffee. I don’t even feel like calling it CTR anymore, to me it’s now just Sri Sagar – just another little eatery. The place where my Grand Father had ‘Masale’ since his young days & had passed on the custom to me is now eroding. Eroding from the best places in town, eroding from my list of most revered places.