Chennai cuisine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chennai is known for a variety of Tamil cuisine's brought to the city by people who have migrated from different parts of Tamil Nadu.The staple food of most of the population is rice. A typical meal usually consists of steamed rice served with about two to six accompanying items. Typically the items are vegetable dishes, sambar, dry curry, rasam, kootu and thayir (curd) or moru (whey or buttermilk) and form part of a typical Tamil Nadu thali lunch served on a traditional banana leaf. For a non-vegetarian meal, curries or dishes cooked with mutton, chicken or fish are included. Meals are often accompanied by crisp appalams.
Lighter meals or tiffin usually include one or more dishes like pongal, dosai, idli or vadai, and are often served for breakfast or as an evening snack. Restaurants in the city offer hundreds of varieties of dosais. Tiffin is usually accompanied by hot filter coffee, the signature beverage of the city. Numerous restaurants offer tiffin dishes which are eaten with coconut chutney, sambar and mulaga podi (a powdered mix of several dried lentils eaten with oil). This unique cuisine is replicated in many a Madras Cafe in other parts of India and the world. Another popular beverage is strongly brewed tea found in the thousands of small tea kadais found across the city.
Chennai has a large number of eating establishments offering a variety of cuisines, price ranges and ambience. They range from street stalls, tea kadais, fast food centres, western fast food centres, food courts, coffee shops, traditional vegetarian and non vegetarian restaurants, bakeries to exclusive speciality establishments. The most popular food available at street food stalls are tiffin, parotta and kurma (gravy), Indianised Chinese food, and various types of biriyani. Vegetarian restaurants serve tiffin and vegetarian meals. There are also a number of restaurants that serve a variety of Tamil, Andhra and Kerala vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare. Many of these restaurants have nowadays diversified and offer other Indian and Indianised Chinese dishes as well.
Other cuisines are also popular in Chennai. While Indian (which includes a diverse range of cuisines from other states of India), European Continental, and Chinese cuisine have been around for a long time, Mexican, Italian, Thai, Korean, Japanese and Mediterranean cuisine to name a few, have become popular with many restaurants exclusively specialising in these cuisines. A growing trend is fusing traditional Tamil cuisine with elements from other cuisines from around India and the world. This results in both spicier versions of foreign dishes (such as Szechuan Chicken Masala) and remixed versions of traditional Tamil dishes (such as Cheese Mushroom Uthappam), increasing the diversity of city cuisine.
