January 12, 2026

A familiar morning

Sunday morning we got brunch at Go Native, a farm to table restaurant with a few locations around Bangalore. Go Native was in an adorable residential neighborhood in a building full of windows, giving us a chance to see a different, calmer side of Bangalore’s residents’ lives.

Here all ingredients are sourced within 500 km of the kitchen from pesticide free farms, and the menu rotates around what is in season. Surrounding the restaurant were many small shops selling crafts and clothing made in the villages surrounding the city. The three of us split 6 drinks and 4 dishes, unable to further narrow down the long menu that lacked a single unappetizing item.

Our meal further highlighted for me how impressive this country is. We were able to eat a variety of foods with many different flavors that all came from this area of the world, showing an impressive diversity of farming and culinary opportunities. It tracked for me that Indian cuisine has long been praised around the world.

After brunch we went to Orion Mall and shopped for gym clothes at the Indian equivalent of Big 5 sporting goods. Orion Mall had every store Id ever heard of and probably every store I hadn’t, all packed together and swarmed by crowds of happy people. It was nothing like the dying malls on the outskirts of big American cities. I had the most successful mall shopping experience of the past few years.

As we walked around, I realized that I didn’t feel like I was in “India” at all. Prior to arriving in this country the media I had consumed and warnings I had received did not mention locally sourced green smoothies and talking myself down from buying new mountaineering equipment. If the situation was reversed and all Seattle was known for was 3rd and Pine or the alleys behind the Ave I wouldn’t have a great mental image of our city either. To me it begged the question of how have people in the United States have gotten away with labeling an entire country of mostly its scariest parts. It could be because the United States seems to update cities one neighborhood at a time, allowing for a blind eye to be turned on the other areas of town, whereas Bangalore seems to update every other building, leaving everyone to coexist with one another. But no matter the reason the fact is that Bangalore has a bit of anything and everything if you’re only willing to do a little hunting on google maps.

By,
Alma