Exam season survival food at Benne & Brew
Heavy lunches end study sessions. Here's what to eat in exam week, what to drink, and when to stop drinking it.
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Notes on the food we cook, the coffee we brew and what’s happening at the cafe in Viman Nagar.

Heavy lunches end study sessions. Here's what to eat in exam week, what to drink, and when to stop drinking it.
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The rain arrives, everyone orders something cold, and nobody enjoys it. A short case for hot coffee in wet weather.
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Some cafes are offices with espresso. We're not one of them, and this piece explains exactly where we do and don't work for a…
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You're early, the terminal is grim, and Viman Nagar is right there. A plan for two spare hours that doesn't involve airport sandwiches.
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Nine stamps, one per coffee, the tenth is ours. No app, no points, no email address. Just a card in your wallet slowly getting…
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It wraps around a beam and over an arch, so every photo of it is slightly wrong. That's sort of the joke.
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It's the most photographed wall in the cafe, and the line means what it says: small tables, strong coffee, no performance.
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Twenty-five minutes, a class to get back to, and a genuine need for coffee. What to order, in what order, so none of it…
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The friend lands Friday night and you have two days. A short plan, honestly held, from people who mostly stay in Viman Nagar.
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Most coffee soft serve is sugar wearing a coffee costume. Ours has chicory in it, and chicory refuses to be polite about sweetness.
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Three drinks, three methods, three completely different results. A plain comparison, from people who make one of them all day.
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If you expected a paper-thin roll the length of your forearm, this isn't that. Here's what a Bengaluru benne dosa does differently, and why.
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One is a category, one is a dish, one is that dish after a swim. Six hundred words to settle an argument nobody was…
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Everyone orders it. Almost nobody can tell you what's in it. Roasted lentils, chilli, sesame — and a name that oversells the heat.
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Steamed, fermented, no oil. All true. Then comes the ghee, the second helping of sambar and the coffee. Here's the honest version.
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A vegetarian section on a menu is not the same as a pure vegetarian kitchen. What the difference means in practice, and how to…
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Most coffee ice cream tastes of sugar with a coffee idea behind it. Made from real filter decoction, it tastes of the cup you'd…
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Airport food is expensive and dull, and Viman Nagar is next door. Which South Indian dishes are quickest, which travel best, and what to…
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A short menu, a filter coffee that costs less than a cappuccino, and a loyalty card that makes the tenth cup free. How to…
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Six breakfast dishes, what each one actually is, and how to order them — from a pure vegetarian tiffin kitchen on Symbiosis Law School…
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Ratings tell you a place is popular. They don't tell you whether the dosa is any good. Here's what to judge instead, and what…
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Why our dosa is thicker, softer and finished with white butter — and why the filter kaapi beside it takes twenty slow minutes.
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