Best brekkie: Tadka Boom! brings true Indian flavours to Melbourne mornings

TADKA BOOM!
22 Goldsbrough Lane, CBD (near corner Bourke and William streets). 9600 1633
Mon-Fri: 7.30am-3pm.

We don't tend to think of Indian cuisine as a breakfast option but then what we know as Indian food is a small part of what's consumed in the country, says Lalitha Rajan.

That was part of the motivation for Rajan to leave a fancy corporate gig at Hewlett-Packard and open Tadka Boom!, her CBD cafe, which serves "healthy" Indian fusion breakfast and lunch.

"When I went out to eat Indian food there was only ever a very small part of Indian cuisine being represented," she says.

Rajan's parents are from southern India but she was born and raised in Delhi, and brings influences from both regions to Tadka Boom! ("Tadka" means seasoning in Hindi; the "Boom" part is self-explanatory). Most of the "home-style" dishes here are based on her family recipes.

"I wanted to show more breadth of Indian food and … to make it fresh, healthy. One of the things I often hear is that it's more of a dinner meal, not breakfast or lunch, and that it's heavy. I wanted to show people that's not what we eat at home."

Rajan's lunch menu tends more towards fusion – such as her Australian slow-cooked lamb with Indian spices – but the small breakfast menu is as authentic as it gets. Recently re-launched after a hiatus ("I think it was too authentic!" she says), the breakfast menu runs from 7.30-10.30am and lends itself very well to the coming cooler months. The popular Grandma's Jau Porridge ($5.90/$6.90 with poached pear), for example, is based on Rajan's grandma's recipe. Silky and creamy – and just the right amount of sweet – it's made from hand-cracked barley seeds soaked in cardamom-infused milk.

"It's a recipe that's very close to my heart," says Rajan. "Once it's cooked in the infused milk, we add berries or poached pear to it. It's a very popular dish often eaten in between meals in India. It's a kanghi, which can be either savoury or sweet – as well as at breakfast."

The scrambled egg roti – a mere $4.90 – is another traditional option. Rajan's flaky rotis are made using masala and her own homemade tomato kusundi, and for an extra $1 you can bung in some slightly less authentic (but no less delicious) bacon, which works well with the delicately spiced eggs.

Tadka's Bombay toasties ($4.90 and easily the cheapest toastie in the CBD), a new addition, are based on popular Bombay street food.

"These are everywhere in Bombay – in the street, at railway stations," says Rajan.

Once you try one of these, made with mint and coriander chutney, you may never go back.

You can accompany your Indian brekkie with a sweet, milky Indian coffee but really, you should be ordering a chai. Not a "chai latte", but a proper Indian-style chai ($3.50 or $2 with a breakfast dish).

"We start from fresh and boil everything," says Rajan. "I don't know what this 'chai latte' is. Ours is going really well because nobody else does the proper Indian chai, the way it's done in India."