I had never really consciously had Chettinaad cuisine before, but this chain from Chennai (102 Syed Alwi Road, 6392-5545, with another location on Race Course Road) was so crowded last time we were in the area that we were forced to eat at their next door neighbor instead. We got in today, but whenever we tried to order something, the waiter turned it around and suggested a variant of it instead. Since we didn't really know anything about this stuff, we figured that we'd go with his choices.
We should have known better. This guy ended up pushing a couple of the most expensive items on the menu, such as a venison that sat in a thick curry with annoying fragments of bone in it. The fish that he got for us was similarly covered in a curry and required quite a bit of effort in manually de-boning the pieces. I understand that Chettinaad cuisine is known for being very spicy, but our items today came off as rather salty instead...including the lime juice (I guess that I didn't specify that I wanted sweet lime juice, so he gave me the salty option instead).
Well, one thing that we really did enjoy was the bindi fry, which was full of rich aroma and went down in a hurry. But I wish that we had done a better job of ordering, as we got totally ripped off today (the food at our neighboring table looked much better). Here's something interesting at least: our fish dish carried the rather unappealing name of "viral curry," and it was only later that I realized that viral is a Tamil word for a specific type of fish.
1 comment:
It was purely by chance that I tried Anjappar for the first time, but now I'm hooked on their spicy food. Next time, ignore the waiters and never order their specials of the day. Try the Anjappar Special Chettinad Chicken Masala and the "Surau puttu" (flaky shark meat stir fry). Try these dishes with the plain rice, not the briyani.
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