A Guide to Hyderabad's Tiffin Bandis

Hyderabad is peppered with street carts that offer delicious, wholesome, home-cooked meals and all-day snacks, collectively called tiffins. Ananya Mullapudi looks at the some of the city’s most popular bandis, and meets the families than run them.

Days and nights look alike in Hyderabad; the streets are bustling, there is traffic, and people are always eating.

Tiffin bandis pepper almost every lane in the city, serving hot, homemade food. Bandis are of two broad varieties here: little carts on wheels, and small shops with limited seating. Most bandi owners have almost identical stories behind why they started — a need to survive. Some share a generational love for food, wanting to make people happy by cooking delicious meals. Other than affordability, the reasons for their popularity are easy access and good, wholesome food.

Although they are called tiffin bandis, they sell several items ranging from breakfast to snacks like bajjis, chaat, and rice or chapatis with curries. The old-school charm of tiffin bandis still holds strong for many: you support the working class directly, get a whole meal at a fraction of the price spent at trendy cafes, and most of all, the flavours are unmatched.

Here are a few lesser-known tiffin bandis around the city.

Eeshwar Tiffins

Located in front of a park, this bandi is only a few months old. “We make a large variety of tiffins like idli, bonda, dosa, pesarattu and poori,” the owner, Rakesh, explains. He works like a machine, inexhaustible, rolling out dough for the bestseller on his menu, puris. “We make the dough and batter fresh every morning, so everything is fresh and tasty,” he says. Rakesh, his older brother and son, wake up at 4 am, cook till 6 am, and open for business by 7am. They stay open until noon. Poori, dosa and vada are priced at ₹35; everything else is ₹30. The puris are light and airy, the Mysore bajjis are perfectly fluffy and chewy at the same time, and the ginger, groundnut, and tomato chutneys are, without exaggeration, to die for.

Address: Panduranga Nagar, opposite the bus bay.

Varasiddhivinayaka Hotel

Varasiddhivinayaka Hotel is crowded in the evening when we visit, serving hot upma dosa, pooris, and punugulu to a steady stream of customers. “We shifted to Hyderabad in 2008; we come from a small village,” says ownder, Srinu. “We used to sell coconut water for about a year and a half, then realised we weren’t making any profits at all, so I learned how to cook.” There were nights when Srinu’s children would go hungry; it has been a long, hard journey for them. “No debts today,” he says, proud of how far he has come.

Srinu and his family wake up at 4 am and get to work by 5; business is on until 1 pm, when they take a break to prepare snacks for the next shift. They are back at it by 4 pm. His wife handles finances and packing, while their sons do the cooking. Their crispy punugulu — fried, savoury fritters, tomato chutney and potato curry are bestsellers. Most items cost ₹30.

Address: Motinagar (lane opposite SBI).

Amma Hotel

Vinoda, a sprightly woman of 70, runs this popular tiffin bandi. “People affectionately call us Amma Hotel,” she smiles. Nestled in a small lane, this bandi is open from 6 am to 12.30 pm, selling tiffins, and snacks well past 4 pm. Their limited menu contains idli, and dosa (with or without egg).

“We started 17 years ago,” she says, while cracking eggs onto a freshly-spread dosa on the tawa. “Back then our dosas used to cost ₹3. On the day I set this up, I made ₹200 rupees,” she says.

Vinoda started this bandi to be independent. “I was alone at home and had nothing to eat, living with my daughter. I thought to myself after a few months, ‘How long can I stay here and depend on her for everything?’ I asked her if I should start a small hotel, and she said yes.” Vinoda’s daughter takes over from her in the evenings, selling mirchi bajji, egg bondas, and punugulu. Idlis are priced at ₹30, and dosas at ₹40.

Address: Plot no. 99, Krishna Nagar.

Vinoda started this unnamed tiffin bandi, affectionately called Amma hotel, 17 years ago.

Prakash Hotel

“We used to work at a company in 1996, where my monthly salary was ₹750. We had no assets to our name,” says Vijayalakshmi, co-owner of Prakash Hotel. “My husband quit his job and started a pani puri stand, but wasn’t able to handle it himself. So we shut that down and started making tiffins,” she says. They had no money to put down as an investment, so the family sold their bike and bought this shop.

Prakash Hotel’s specials are their chicken dishes. They serve chapatis, rice, curries, and snacks in the evening, and are open till 10.30pm. Business is growing steadily. “Back then we made around ₹400-500 rupees a day. Now we make between 5,000 to 15,000 a day. We even supply meals to shooting crews at Ramoji Film City.”

Address: Umarkhanguda, Sanghi Nagar

Ananya Mullapudi is a small business owner and writer/editor. She has a special place in her heart for food, having grown up in a joint family that loved cooking. Follow her on Instagram

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