When new or old friends meet and want to spend some quality time, it is necessary that we should have a common place. The place needs to be central, calm, quiet, and should be able to drink/eat something without disturbance of noise, chatter and constant pestering by the serving persons etc.

Normally, bars are preferred for such purposes. Yeah. Even if one goes alone, and prefers to spend time in solitude sipping a drink, certain bars are good. But, I find most of the bars turn terribly noisy and so are the gangs visiting the bars. ‘Elixir’, a bar situated in the Express Avenue, a few years back was a fantastic place to spend time quite peacefully. But, it was closed suddenly and reopened again in recent times, but with a changed interior and well, with a lot of noise.

If one visits Bike & Barrel in Residency Towers, T Nagar, during the daytime it will be good. But, at night it would be heavily crowded with very high decibels of music. Nothing but Horror!

Among hotels, once ‘Woodlands Drive-in’ was the best place to visit alone or with friends and converse and eat peacefully. There, one can pass time without being disturbed also with tasting delicious dishes. Alas, it vanished.

In the recent past, I found ‘Kapila Dasa’ is the best place to meet friends and have food or snacks and enjoy quality time. No music, nothing. We can talk to each other in a normal voice and we can also make a request to the waiters to serve us slowly. They, however, had a fixed menu. I am immensely pleased with their Mysore Masala Dosa, Soups, Bisibele bath, Coffee and Drinking Chocolate. Nevertheless, some of my friends are not supporters of this menu.

In the absence of any other better place fairly close to my home, and Express Avenue being in the centre of the city, most of the time I prefer Kapila Dasa. (My recent visit was on Jan 8, 2022). Once after attending a noon concert in the Music Academy, I went and sat there in an individual seat ordering just a coffee and completed writing the review. So calm, peaceful and no disruption!

I do find families coming there and make enough noise; but, the place is big enough to move to a quiet corner, if one needs silence and solitude.

But, Woodlands Drive-in, former Elixir and Kapila Dasa are all vegetarian.