Murugan Idli Shop – Chennai

This is a very nice vegetarian restaurant at T. Nagar in Chennai. The reason we visited this place was that it was primarily close to place we were staying. But the piping hot and tasty food ensured we returned to it as long as we stayed in Chennai!

Murugan Idli Shop

Murugan Idli Shop is a chain from Madurai, and has opened quite a few restaurants in Chennai, at least 5 of which are in the T. Nagar area. We visited the one at South Usman Road in T. Nagar.

The first time we visited here, we ordered for a plate of idli and masala dosa. The food here is served on fresh banana leaves, South-style! The water glasses too are mainly disposable ones, but they are placed in small steel glasses to facilitate holding the glass. To prevent people from serving/drinking water from the steel ones, they are made with holes as the glass design. 🙂 Pretty unique, and definitely nice! Further, there are no bowls provided for serving sambhar. So if that’s what you want served, you can rest assured it will mix up with the rest of the food on the leaf…

While waiting for our snacks to be served we were approached by a waiter who was serving hot aratikaya (plantain) bajjis. A plate consists of 2 bajjis, so we opted for 1 plate, where Hubby and I  had one each. By the time our tiffins came, we were still trying to cool the steaming hot bajjis! 🙂

The hot bajji with idli-vada.. served on a fresh banana leaf.

The next morning we had a heavy breakfast of steaming hot idlis, pongal & vada and a hot onion uttappam, followed with a cup of strong coffee. It certainly did wake us up! 🙂

Pongal served with vada, various chutneys and sambhar

Lunch was a not-so-great affair though. There were a number of dishes served, but most of them contained garlic, which was quite a turn off for us. The lunch hall is located on the first floor, and one needs to pay for a lunch coupon at the door before taking a seat.

There is also a stall for “Jigarthanda” at the outside entrance. I’m not really sure what it is, but it looked like an ice-cream-topped milkshake. But I couldn’t get around to trying it though… 😦

In all, Murugan Idli shop is a nice place for a quick and tasty meal. The prices are reasonable, and it is definitely great value for money.

 

 

Hotel Saravana Bhavan – Chennai

On a recent trip to Chennai, one of our breakfast stops was Hotel Saravana Bhavan. We had earlier had meals in this chain of restaurants in Kanchipuram. But the experience of having breakfast at Chennai is an experience we would love to repeat whenever we get a chance in the future!

The first round of snacks was a plate of mini-tiffins  and ghee-roast dosa. Yumm! The mini-tiffin was anything but mini. While each item serving was small, in all the dish was quite heavy. It included idli-sambhar, dosa, pongal, rava kesari (sweet dish) accompanied with 2 types of chutney and sambhar. The ghee-roast dosa was literally made with ghee, rather than using oil and topping off with ghee!

Mini-Tiffin

huge ghee-roast dosa

The next round was a simple plate of idli-vada, which we decided that we couldn’t leave Chennai without sampling. The idli size in this serving was pretty large, and extremely soft, so much so that it would melt in the mouth! A stiff competition to butter indeed :).

Idli-vada with podi and ghee, 3 types of chutney and sambhar

We topped the breakfast with coffee. Though we didn’t think to take pics by this time.. we were too busy enjoying the heady smell of fresh filter coffee. 🙂

In all, we would always recommend a stop at any of the Saravana Bhavan restaurants if one ever visits Chennai. It’s a pleasure not to be missed. The food is piping hot, and very tasty, a definite value for money!

 

 

Aloo Bajji – Redux

When I was travelling last week, Hubby made himself some Aloo Bajjis. And since this particular recipe is posted here, here is the picture of the same! 🙂

Aloo Bajjis

Aloo bajjis are probably the easiest to make snacks. I do hope my Dear Readers here post some of their own efforts! 🙂