Sunday, December 17, 2006

Kaasi Vinayaka Mess, Triplicane


This place is ancient, so I’ve heard, but by no means a relic in this age of fancy theme restaurants. But then this is not your everyday restaurant. It’s a mess. Ah! Before you get me wrong, I didn’t mean ‘mess’ as in “Gosh! What a mess!”. I meant 'mess' as in limited menu canteen.

You get wholesome Tamil food here for as little as Rs.22. That’s Rs. 25 if you want a cup of curd thrown in. Oh! Before I forget, you only get vegetarian food here – rice and the accompaniments. And they don’t ask you if you’d prefer boiled rice or raw rice. It’s just rice – the ‘limited’ variety and the ‘full’ variety, which amounts to a little more… a thousand grains or so more.

Bachelors in Triplicane, Chennai swear by this mess. They are open for lunch around 11:00 am through 3:00 pm and then again for dinner from 7:00 pm to 10:30 pm. Eleven if you stretch it. But by then the curd would have run out.

Come here, and you first need to stand in queue for your ‘meals token’. There’s the yellow and white (pronounced 'pfhite') token. Once they call your token, you have exactly ten minutes to wolf down your meal. Begin with delicious ‘podi’ and wholesome ghee to accompany your first portion of rice. This is simply divine, believe you me! But you won’t get more of it. Then comes your sambar followed by rasam and buttermilk laced with fresh spices.

You get a side of ‘koottu’ which is a gooey, bland vegetable stew and a ‘porial’ which invariably is a mix of steamed carrots, peas, cabbage and scrapped coconut lightly sautéed in oil. The papad and perfectly tangy pickle complete the picture. (The pickle goes best with rice and curd, remember.)

Too tame you think? Not a chance! It’s a whole new experience that begins with standing in queue and listening to bachelor talk followed by a ten-minute wait until your token is called. The service is fast and efficient. Everything works to clockwork and when you come out burping, you’ll be pleased you came here. Maybe you’d even write an ‘ode to a burp’ if you're so inclined.

Ambience: **
Value for Money: *****
Food: ****

6 comments:

Unknown said...

yay! bloom! ewe have posted! i ees likings!

Rajesh Rajoo said...

tank ewe.

Mayil said...

u forgot to tell about vatha kulambu.
and more u can get return or Rs. 2 if u don't like to have 'podi'.

y u not told about padayappa??

Rajesh Rajoo said...

mayil: thank ewe. i yam sure people reading the comments will know about the return of Rs.2. thank ewe for visiting. and come again.

Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention about the potato chips a pack cost say 3 - 4 rupees. It is a amazing place to have tamil meals especially drumstick sambar and tomato rasam are my favourite. Very systematic, hygenic and well managed. I like the speed at which they rotate in peak hours of lunch and dinner.

Rajeev

Anonymous said...

What happened to Sydogi mess....the small onion sambhar with crispy potato curry and pachhadi and moon apllalams ?

Akash