It’s no secret that I love good food. And I will go to extreme lengths to find it!

I chanced upon the Banana Cafe, thanks to my sis­ter who cur­rently calls this town her abode. It was a small hole in the wall oper­a­tion, but going by its pop­u­lar­ity, I knew that some­thing was obvi­ously attract­ing a lot of cus­tomers. And since it was a restau­rant, I deduced it had to be the qual­ity of the food! I tried it and loved it.

On a later trip to Pondi, my sis­ter informed me that the cafe had since been shut down as they had to vacate the small space they were oper­at­ing from (it was a part of a larger house). Which was a pity since it was walk­ing dis­tance from where my sis­ter lives.

But the story doesn’t end there. A few months later, on another trip I was given the good news. The owner had man­aged to find another place for his busi­ness. It’s now tucked away in a quiet lane called Cazy street and you’ll have to really look hard to find it. But it’s def­i­nitely worth the adven­ture to get there. And the best part — it’s still two streets down from where my sis­ter resides.

The New Banana Cafe as it’s called in the cur­rent avatar, is on the ter­race of a res­i­dence. You need to climb a few pairs of stairs to get to the top. The open air loca­tion means you’re treated to a nice pleas­ant breeze while you wait for the food. There is a mosque very close to it so be pre­pared in case you’re going any­time dur­ing prayer hours. Oth­er­wise, it’s rel­a­tively peace­ful. Senthil, the hard-working owner who runs the cafe,  also has wi-fi so you can sit there and type away. Not that you should go there and do any urgent work; that would totally defeat the point of being in Pondi!

But mov­ing on to what we all want to know about… the food. First is a dis­claimer: the menu is extremely lim­ited. I’ve gone numer­ous times though and maybe because I enjoy the food so much, I don’t really mind the lack of vari­ety. And it’s not Indian food - so if you’re only sat­is­fied with roti and rice, this is not the place for you.

What I like how­ever is that every­thing that comes out of the kitchen is super fresh. I love the fresh veg­eta­bles and inevitably ask for the salad. With the crunchy beet­root, the potato wedges, which Senthil makes really well, it’s actu­ally a meal in itself. He also has fish some­times, do enquire. He cooks up a sim­ple min­i­mal fuss prepa­ra­tion, but it’s really good since the fish is quite fresh. There are also the quiches, gratin and bakes which are well sized and make for an excel­lent meal, served with salad on the side. I usu­ally order one of the drinks on the menu — try out the flower syrups with soda. Can I have one more please?

New Banana cafe at Pondicherry

If you want to try some­thing dif­fer­ent, I’d rec­om­mend the ragi galette — it’s not what you expect. It’s much better!

The prices are pretty rea­son­able too and won’t make a big dent in your pocket.

Find­ing New Banana Cafe is an adven­ture in itself, but if you’ve got a suf­fi­ciently smart phone, I would leave it to the device to do the hard work and lead you there. Be pre­pared to do a lit­tle bit of work before you get to the food.

Don’t expect any­thing fancy here. The ambi­ence is low-key and the place is sim­ple, but cosy. Just go there for whole­some deli­cious home-cooked food and you won’t be disappointed.

It’s closed on Mon­days and check their open­ing and clos­ing times on other days on their Face­book page — they’re online too.

I, for one, am look­ing for­ward already to my next trip there!

Related arti­cles

• Expe­ri­enc­ing Pondicherry via its cafés and restaurants
• Eat­ing Our Way from Coast to Coast
• Tasty Food

Related Posts via Categories

• Cel­e­brat­ing good food at Caperberry
• Food, wine and conversation
• Mex­i­for­nia is the flavour of the sea­son at Cal­i­for­nia Pizza Kitchen
• Wine and sun­shine in California
• Chai and conversations
• White­field gets a brand new din­ing place in Counter Culture
• Of gas­tron­omy, glut­tony and much gladness
• Another ready reckoner!
• Patra ni mac­chi and other Parsi delicacies!
• Hun­gry, kya?