We had a long weekend due to parliament election, good friday etc. So our apartment mates were going for a regular 2 hour morning badminton. One day I saw some messages in the group asking whether we can go for the Hoskote Biriyani on Sunday. I didn't mind too much into those chats, until someone pointed out that we need to reach the shop before 9:00 AM, as the shop is getting closed by that time. That rejuvenated my curiosity quotient and decided to explore more on that. Surprisingly, a lot of travel bloggers and others already posted a lot about the Hoskote Biriyani. Some of the information which I gathered are -
1. There are 2 major shops - Anand and Mani at Hoskote.
2. They are operating for the past 15+ years.
3. They start their biriyani preparation from night 2 AM onwards.
4. The preparation is only using firewood.
5. The shop is operational from 6:30 AM to 9:30 AM
6. They serve only Mutton Biriyani
7. It's open only 3 days a week (Tuesday, Friday, Sunday)
8. All these days, they prepare 200Kgs of rice, which is equivalent to 1400 plates (Not sure on the authenticity of this statement)
9. All payments are by cash mode only
10. We can get parcel. If we need to eat there, we may need to stand and eat or take the plates outside of the shop and eat.
These information created more interest in me and I also decided to join the group. We were 10 people and went by 2 cars from Whitefield to Hoskote. It was around 15 kilometers and a pleasant drive in the morning. From Whitefield, we need to cross HopeFarm signal and go through Kadugodi and go towards the end of the road, then take a right. We reached the place by 6:45 AM after crossing the toll plaza.
Google Map Link
1. There are 2 major shops - Anand and Mani at Hoskote.
2. They are operating for the past 15+ years.
3. They start their biriyani preparation from night 2 AM onwards.
4. The preparation is only using firewood.
5. The shop is operational from 6:30 AM to 9:30 AM
6. They serve only Mutton Biriyani
7. It's open only 3 days a week (Tuesday, Friday, Sunday)
8. All these days, they prepare 200Kgs of rice, which is equivalent to 1400 plates (Not sure on the authenticity of this statement)
9. All payments are by cash mode only
10. We can get parcel. If we need to eat there, we may need to stand and eat or take the plates outside of the shop and eat.
These information created more interest in me and I also decided to join the group. We were 10 people and went by 2 cars from Whitefield to Hoskote. It was around 15 kilometers and a pleasant drive in the morning. From Whitefield, we need to cross HopeFarm signal and go through Kadugodi and go towards the end of the road, then take a right. We reached the place by 6:45 AM after crossing the toll plaza.
Google Map Link
When we reached there, we could see a large parking space available (open parking), which is almost full with lots of bikes and cars. A lot of young crowd was there and many started eating!!
Yes, they were eating Mutton Biriyani at 6:45 AM, by standing in a queue for getting the food and taking the plate outside.
There is a queue for getting the tokens. It's only cash payment there. For the number of biriyanis, we need to pay the cash and we will get a token instead in the first queue. The rates of the biriyani was mentioned as Rs. 190 and for half biriyani, its Rs. 150. It was also mentioned that they don't have any branches - Novelty !!
After the first queue, there are 2 separate queues, one for taking parcel and the other for having it there. Earlier we read that, they are not providing any containers for parcel and we had to carry, so we had our containers with us. But that was not true and they were providing the parcel in the aluminium foil containers. Since we had the containers, they gave the parcel in that.
When we enter the shop, the left side queue was for parcel and the right side queue was for having it there. They are processing quite fast. The shop doesn't look very cozy and looks very average or even below.
But, I liked the biriyani and the mutton very much, it was really good. For me, it looked like they had created a niche by providing this in the early morning and they limited the supply similar to the Mi flash sales which created more curiosity and in-turn more demand. The word of mouth spread very fast and I could see a lot of bike travellers and families over there.
We also had the Paya Soup (Mutton Leg Soup). They had the options for having it with/without the leg piece. The raita/salad was served in a separate place within the shop. The soup, chicken curry, white rice etc. were sold separately within the shop. Not sure, if that's part of Anand or given the space for rent separately.
Overall, a nice experience in having some tasty biriyani early in the morning (btw, I just had a half biriyani from there and took 2 biriyanis parcel). This can be useful, if someone is coming over from our hometown to Bangalore and if they wanted to try out something different.
In Kerala, the young generation is having quite a good amount of disposable income and they are looking for varieties - This idea can be utilized. Wagamon kind of places, wherein people are going for a trip on bikes and cars or even a place like Kumarakom, where a lot of tourism is there, people can start something like this - Creating a niche and limiting the supply to create the demand and rest will be taken care by the social media and word of mouth. But as always, food is a very risky business!!!
