Coimbatore: Food Trail

I will be honest. The only reason I enjoy travelling down south is because of the food. It's just incredibly gorgeous, never messes with me and leaves me asking for more. I don't think the food there, especially the food of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, has any marginal utility curve whatsoever. The more you have, the more you want. Of course, I must confess that I have never gone too long without eating posto and vada pav so deprivation of those two specifics may make me go insane but I will never know. Now, let's kindly turn our attention to the Vadai on top. That's the man's plateful of Vadai coz I was done polishing mine off before his came. We were at Sri Annapoorna, which is known for decades of unfaltering service and churns out litre after glorious litre of delicious Arachavittu Sambar (albeit with drumsticks but the man wasn't complaining). This is the standard for the man, who finds even Mani's and Cafe Madras at Matunga incomparable to this awesomeness. We quietly ate. I noticed that the Sambar, amazing in comparison, was not comparing in the least to the Sambar I make. And then, if you compare it to what my MIL makes, it was rubbish. Slightly sweet and not hitting the palate like it usually does. Nevertheless, the man was enthralled after several long months of being appalled by Mumbai's Tam Brahm food standards. Nevertheless, the vadai was gorgeous, crisp but soft centred, fresh urad dal dough that was fragrant and well seasoned.

Then came the Nei (Ghee) Roast Dosai with a beet root chutney that the man hated but I loved, a green mint chutney that he hated but I loved.

With the usual coconut chutney and sambar to go. The chutney was okay because according to the man, untempered chutney is a waste of time and energy. The dosa was a hero. Flaky, papery but just barely soft inside, crispy ghee roasted skin, golden and steaming hot, oozing dairy goodness onto our fingers which we were licking clean. Thankfully, the crowd was doing just the same so we didn't stand out too much.

Meanwhile, I sauntered off to the sweets section - I feel the South ought to get its share of glory for coming up with some seriously amazing sweetmeats. But this was, as I realised, why we do not hear so much about the sweets down south. RajPhog - are you kidding me?! Why even bother?

But it quickly redeemed itself with its glorious Mysore Pak, which Sri Annapoorna has patented as MysoorPa. Nobody else can use that term to market their Mysore Pak. Lovely but Sri Krishna sweets beats the whack out of it with its eyes closed anyway.

Now, few of you will know this because I have not sung ballads to this delight on my blog yet. However, Badam Halwa may have been the reason why I married the man, for how else was I to find this most underrated sweet of Tamil Nadu? Ghee laden, almost wilting when you lift it because the almond flour is less in ratio to the ghee, sweet and sprinkled generously with nuts and saffron - of course, Sri Krishna Sweets takes the trophy again although that night, out of sheer greed, I was just as pleased with my small helping of the sweet from Sri Annapoorna.

Dry Rasagulla - I hope the guy who came up with the very idea chokes on his own bile or something. Then again, instead of getting angry and walking out of the shop, the Bengali in me succumbed to a plate of what you are about to see.

A bit of Mysore Pak and Badam Halwa. Let's just quietly look at that photo, alright? They have not yet invented words befitting these two emperors of sweet foods. Yes, I'd pick them over non-dry Rasgullas any day. And may the Bongs disown me for saying this but I will stand by my word.

The next day, as I signed in to Foursquare, I saw that for some reason, one Sree Anandhaas had more positive ratings than Sree Annapoorna. I was intrigued and convinced the man, who looked highly affronted, to go to Anandhaas for breakfast instead. What a stroke of good luck! That's my plateful of vadai with arachavittu sambar, tomato and tempered coconut chutney, and a most delicately made Venn Pongal. I fainted in joy, recovered and dug in. The sambar was impeccable, I could find no fault. The man, grudgingly, agreed it was better.

Then came the Nei Roast again, which we had sworn we'd eat as many times as we possibly could. Just as good as the one at Annapoorna but taken to dizzying heights by that perfect sambar.

I also got this wheat upma, and upma in any form is glorious but this was by far, the best wheat upma I have eaten. Each grain stood out, well cooked but not mushy, lightly tempered and the chutneys to go were the masterstroke. I also drank down the sambar like a shot. Nobody was looking, I swear. With our belts considerably tightened and wallets hardly hit (120 bucks!) we left for my SIL's place, and we woefully agreed that this would probably be last of our outside meals in Coimbatore given how the man's family considers eating out when home cooked meals are readily available as base treachery.

But not before downing a full steaming glass of filter kaapi. Burp.

In our defence, we were so stuffed, we skipped lunch. But by 4pm, we were ravenous again and a plateful of home made delights were presented to us. There's that thick Payasam, called, umm, Akkaravadisal and it tastes very similar to a slightly more liquid version of the Sakkarai Pongal. And I am holding up something they call Sojiappam. Made with maida, mildly sweet. And those small vadais are Paruppu Vadai, different from Masala Vadai in that they don't have onion in them. Festival food so it's all onion garlic free.

Anyway, the same day, we managed to walk by another branch of Sree Anandhaas and I managed to down this. Pillowy soft idlis that still held their texture when I cut into them instead of crumbling, something that ill matured batters do. Most delicious and perfect for a quick evening bite.

Then of course, the remaining days, we were mostly eating at the ceremony hall. I forgot to mention, we had gone to Coimbatore for our nephews' thread ceremonies and this was Tam Brahm food at its best. The only place I can eat a seriously good Utthapam is at a Tam Brahm feast - soft, velvety goodness, fresh and drowning in sambar. And yes, seriously awesome Arachavittu Sambar again.

Followed by Lemon Semiya, delicately spiced with lemon juice, fried dal, served with generous helpings of sambar. I had two helpings of this and then skipped everything until the next important meal. Which was...

*gasp* Vadais, fries, appalams, fritters, chutneys, a lovely paruppu payasam, rice, rasam, poriyal of 2-3 different seasonal veggies, thayir pachadi with okra, buttermilk, sambar, curd rice...you realise that I gave up halfway for my plate to fill fo I could take a photo? Yeah, I suppose you do.

Although I see I have managed one very messy photo pf rice and sambar - and no, photos won't ever justify the goodness that this is. I love this sambar. I may not eat it every day of my life, but the man sure can. That's saying a lot.

And appalams. Better papads were not invented although I am deeply in love with sabudana and potato papads which you see more of in Maharashtra, bless its soul.

And this seriously divine rasam, which had chunky bits of tomatoes, just the way I like it. A lot of people tend to pick out the tomatoes, like my nephew does and I try to usually glare at him and make him eat them anyway (I love bullying kids, don't you?) but I think that bite of umame that tomato lends is heavenly in a rasam that is otherwise asafoetida and tamarind heavy.

I really regret this picture, even with my lousy photo taking skills. It does zero justice to how good this Rice Payasam was, just perfect caramelisation, lovely fragrant elaichi flavour seeping through and mildly warm, perfect for the rainy evening that it was served on.

Yet another lunch plate, with a side of tamarind rice this time and thayir vadai (sort of a medu vadai in curd combo) with a mango ginger salad and also a small squiggly imarti, which was nice but not very coherent with the rest of the dishes in front of us). The Arbi Fry on top, charming. it's tough to get it crisp and cooked and not-soggy, a feat achievable by chefs who cook this food every day i suppose. Practice makes perfect, after all. This meal more or less closed our festival food eating. Very sadly, I departed for a small town outside of Coimbatore where another SIL lives - the place is called Udumalpet and the man spent a part of his boyhood there. One of the important parts of his boyhood was his completely head over heels love for a bakery by the name of Royal Bakery. He has often, in vain, described goodies he ate from this shop. Finally, we had a chance to visit the place this time.

We came back with a pudding cake, honey rolls, butter buns. The pudding cake was not at all pudding-y but a passable caramel cake. Nice but nothing I cannot forget.

The honey roll is something the man really likes and yes, it was nice. But I could gather no trace of honey from it. The pastry was delicious though, buttery but light, just perfect to bite into on a cold, rainy evening.

This was one of the things the man has been describing to me for years. Now, I have been missing Monginis' Mushroom Canapes for years, the one I describe was what I have eaten last in the year 1998 and it was glorious. Monginis still has mushroom canapes but they have deteriorated in quality so spectacularly that I cannot recognise the thing they sell these days as even edible. Much the same seems to have happened with this butter bun. The bread itself was lovely, soft, fresh and with a beautiful crust. However, it was stuffed with home made white butter that was whipped with a humongous load of icing sugar. This made it indescribably sweet. Impossible to have any beverage with it and kids would probably love this but the adult me, who is anyway very intolerant to overwhelmingly sweet things, did not much enjoy this. Then again, I only have the sophistication and exposure of the tongue to blame it all on. I mumbled a wow to the man and to my niece, both of whom were looking at me with big, expectant eyes, mostly for approval I believe.

That's my niece. Her name is Varsha and she is seriously in love with naan and Paneer Butter Masala. Which meant going shopping for ingredients from scratch because much of what goes into the dish wasn't in their pantry.

I came up with a most unsatisfactory Paneer Butter Masala because the Paneer you get down south is appalling to say the least. I should probably have made the Paneer from scratch too. Lesson learnt. Niece loved it though. And I was glad to be in a kitchen after days of eating out.

Finally, the day we were to leave Coimbatore, we managed to nip into another Sri Annapoorna. I had an average Venn Pongal with Sambar and Chutney - great if you compare it to what you get in Mumbai but very meh if you pit it against Sree Anandhaas. I wonder if they will ever come to Mumbai because if they do, in one stroke, they will drive the whole of Matunga out of business. I kid you not.

The man ordered a Paper Dosa and instantly regretted it. Because, of course, it is hardly comparable to what I ordered and refused to share... 

The Nei Roast. My goodbye to Coimbatore had to be grand, after all. My dearest wish now is to be good friends with at least one cook from a Sree Anandhaas so I can have free supply of their food everytime I visit.