#blahvsfood goes to Bopy’s in Mysore

Bopy’s is one of those places that’s a feeling…

The proprietor Ramesh Bopiah had started Pelican Pub, Mysore’s first pub along with his brother before branching off to start his own place and over the last two decades Bopy’s has become an institution. 

Fiery pork 

It’s hard for me to explain why Bopy’s is so special. The food is excellent especially the fiery pork grilled on a skewer like a mutton kebab. In fact all the pork dishes are great, as you would expect from a place that’s run by a Kodava couple that knows and loves their food and where Mrs. Bopiah continues to supervise the kitchen every day. But it’s not just pork. There is a mutton liver and kidney dish that’s fabulous, the Dindugal biryani is the real deal and all the mutton dishes were excellent, topped off by their famous coffee pudding. 

Liver and kidney

But honestly, this place is about so much more than food and drink. Mr. Bopiah is one of the warmest, nicest hosts you can meet and the restaurant is the living embodiment of this generous, big-hearted man. We had a special evening, full of stories and conversation, surrounded by people who were smiling and happy and with an energy that just felt infectious. We sat under a canopy created by the branches of a mango tree and drank the Bopiah family’s potent fig liquor (with the most intoxicating, alcohol filled figs at the bottom) and rum and coke and felt like we were in a local neighbourhood restaurant that we had grown up in, that we knew and loved, despite being in a completely different city. 

The famous coffee pudding 

Hospitality is a tough business. If your place lasts five or six years, you’re a success. If it’s a decade you’re a star. But only legends last three decades. It takes a special kind of person to create a place like Bopy’s, and to me Mr. Bopiah is a legend, and the secret sauce behind my favourite place in Mysore.

Dindugul Biryani