Food

Breakfast at home

The question frequently posed to travelers upon their return is "How was the food?"

Food in Chennai and South Indian food in general is vegetarian and spicy.  The main starch is rice and rice flour is used to make idlis (a spongy dumpling) and dosas (rice crepes).  Accompanying the starches are various vegetable curries that I identify as green, yellow, or orange.  Some restaurants serve what they call North Indian food.  As far as I could tell, it consists of wheat-flour breads (naan, pooris, etc) with the same green, yellow, and orange vegetable curries.

Pooris with potato or cauliflower or something

Meals are sometimes served on a banana leaf.  It's adds color and doubles as the salad course. Some restaurants still use these, but place them on ceramic plates so they appear traditional without being bumpkin.

Daylight come and me wan' go home.

Another common set up is a thali, or stainless steel plate, which holds smaller steel containers of green, yellow, or orange vegetable curries.  In the photo below, the thali holds 13 smaller containers.  To me, many of the dishes look alike.

Some Chennai restaurants serve meat, but usually as chicken biryani. You won't find the flesh of cattle or hogs anywhere.  The "salami" at the Indian Subway is from turkey and the frozen sausages at some grocery stores is made from lamb.

That's more like it.

So, to answer the question, "The food was OK."  I must disclose that I'm not a great fan of South Indian cuisine, which I often find to be overly spicy.  Nevertheless, I ate whatever unidentified vegetable curry was placed before me.

Food photography by Thuy