Heading for the famous Jog Falls, we made an early start from Shivamogga on NH 206. The town looked like a war zone, because entire stretches of buildings and shopfronts had been demolished to widen the highway. Homage to the ravenous automobile god, but not calculated to make us feel positively inclined about Shivamogga. Even if I'm in a car, I thought, I would welcome a little hardship in driving - narrow roads, traffic - if that will preserve the character of a town. Yet it never happens that way. Obsessed as we now are with wheels, the car's needs always dictate how a city develops.

Still, on the way out we passed a number of fruit vendors, their apples and luscious jackfruits arranged in careful pyramids, their gleaming yellow mosambis a match for the passing autorickshaws. We noticed them because we were hungry and getting hungrier: dinner last night had been a disaster, and this morning nothing was yet open that looked inviting enough for breakfast. But this morning, even good-looking fruit wouldn't do. It had to be real food, and quickly.

Exactly an hour later, we shot through a hamlet: red earth either side of us, kids in equally red school uniforms, roosters stalking about, cows munching on this and that, a board that said both "DOTHIES FOR SALE!" and "MEGHA HIT MOVIE!" And thank you, no demolitions.

No, we were about to shoot through this place we learned was called Choradi, but something about the feel here - that board, I think - made us slow down. Then we saw it. An eatery of sorts, Hotel Vinay. And it was open. And it looked inviting, though it's possible our judgement was being swayed by hunger.

We parked and entered. About 10 tables in all, placed close together in a small room. Bright green wall on our left, orange-pink wall in front, fragrant orange flowers hanging in the doorway: quite the psychedelic decor scheme. Only a couple of other customers present. We took the corner table. Within seconds, two things happened. Someone plonked a large steel pitcher of water down in front of us, and other breakfasters began pouring in. Within minutes, every table was taken and there were people waiting outside. It was as if we were the cue, as if they had been waiting for us to enter. But where had all these men - for my wife and six year-old were the only women there - appeared from?

Only one item on the menu: idli-sambhar. We ordered. While we waited, we looked around. To my left, a man in shorts, vest and checked towel around his neck was already sipping hot coffee from a small steel tumbler, chatting animatedly with his table-mates, the fumes from the coffee enveloping his face and hands. On another table, someone was reading a Kannada newspaper. Spoons clinked, people laughed, there was soon a buzz of animated conversation. Just the usual, in a cramped place like this.

Then, in a small fog of heat vapour and sambhar aroma, our idlis arrived. In hungry anticipation, my stomach growled.

I picked up an idli. I dipped it into the small bowl of chutney, then into another small bowl of steaming sambhar. I bit into it. My tongue nearly fell off.

I mean that. It was exactly that spicy, that hot, that aromatic. The flavours waltzed around my mouth, squeezed into every sensory cell I possessed, travelled up to suffuse my entire brain, maybe even my entire being. No, I don't exaggerate at all. I was gasping with the spiciness, yet I was really in raptures. I mean, I could taste the coconut in the chutney, the eggplant and drumsticks and the cocktail of spices in the sambhar, the light freshness of the idli, and somehow it all came together, suddenly perfect, and it filled and thrilled my senses.

Was this real? At the best of times I pay minimal attention to food, yet here I was bowled over by, of all mundane things, idli-sambhar. But this idli-sambhar was extraordinary, maybe something for the gods. Were we really in a no-name eating establishment in a nondescript village on an entirely average highway? I thought of pinching myself to be sure. I didn't need to. As we ate, as the others were served their idli plates too, a progressive hush blanketed the room: from our always chatty kids to all the men.

I knew why: you can't both talk and savour breakfast this exquisitely full of flavour.

When I was done with that first mouthful, I only wanted more. When I was done with the plate, I still only wanted more. But eventually I had to stop, if only because we had to get on the road.

For months that have stretched to years, I have been plotting ways to return to Hotel Vinay by the highway, just so my tongue can once more nearly fall off. Haven't managed it, but I once did send a substitute. A friend wanted to do a leisurely stop-and-go bus trip from Bombay to Bangalore, and asked me for suggestions on where to go, what to do. I could have said Hampi, the Jog Falls, Coorg. But first on my list was Choradi.

Choradi, where the idli-sambhar silenced a room full of men. And my family. And me.

Postscript: I actually wrote this short essay in 2010 and never published it. Confession: I don't remember who the friend of the stop-and-go bus trip is!