When we were children living in Palakkad,” my friend said, “my mother used to drive to Coimbatore
Globalised affluence hit Coimbatore (or Kovai) a while ago, so don’t be surprised by the Audi showrooms and the Mercs on the road. During one of my best meals in town, the patriarch of a large Malappuram Muslim clan at the next table said half disapprovingly, “Industrialisation came here long ago. That’s why people eat out so much.” Daddy knows best. This is the home of Kongu (western Tamil Nadu) cuisine. It is also home to the wet grinder, before which every kitchen had a black hellhole aatu-kal (a large mortar and pestle in stone) to grind dosa batter. No one knows where the inventor Sabapathy lived, or else generations of South Indian women would want to raise a statue to the dude there.
Just to be clear. This is not an idli-dosa city. Sure, you’ll get some stunning vegetarian food. But this is a town where people eat kheema upma and prawn kurma for Sunday breakfast at home. Walk around Kovai and the weird culinary obsessions leap out. Our hotel’s entire façade was taken over by a jumbo poster for the grinning ‘DJ Parotta’. Elsewhere, Chef Damu, a TV chef and chief guest at a new restaurant opening, smiled down from a four-storey-high hoarding. A city-wide cultural festival was featuring a cooking contest at an engineering college. Go online and there’s even an avid Coimbatore Foodie Facebook group.
You will want to wake up early in Coimbatore because there is just so much to try. Begin by hotfooting it to one of the many Annapoorna Gowrishankars in town. The first Annapoorna was started in 1968. Today, the chain is said to consume a tonne of rice and 20,000 coffee tumblers per day. I hit the big branch on D.B. Road. Begin at the beginning. Eat your way through a five-foot ghee paper roast dosa (Rs 175) with its handmaidens: coriander chutney, tomato chutney, the bland local variant of coconut chutney and sambar. The waiters carefully arrange several banana leaves to ensure that your dosa Godzilla doesn’t touch the table. As contrast, my companion and I try the lovely light lemon sevai (Rs 35), thin rice noodles cooked with coconut pieces, toor dal, urad dal, mustard, curry leaves and cashew. (Unlike other parts of South India, Kongu cuisine uses copra, not fresh coconut. So expect coconut chips instead of grated coconut.) The badam halwa (Rs 16) has a delightful fine-grained texture but is a bit too sweet for our palates. Better to bet on the amudam laddoo (also called the Tirupati Balaji laddoo), scarlet slices of wheat halwa, jaangiri (jalebi but sturdier, Rs 16), or our favourite, the khoya-filled suryakala (Rs 17). Like every other place we go to, Annapoorna has cheerful, efficient waiters who let you linger all day long.
Anandhas on Puliyakulam Road is more modern with its daily-changing diet breakfasts (diet dosa and upma, cucumber juice and cornflakes) but the service here is just as relaxed. The superb mini tiffin (Rs 100) is a pageant of sambar vada, idli, puri masala, pongal and pineapple kesari baath. If you skip the mini tiffin get the rava dosa, but be warned of the whole peppercorns sticking to its crisp insides, waiting for your doom.
Now is a good time to figure why rose milk is advertised so prominently everywhere in the city. The version at Anandhas arrives a deadly deep pink (Rs 35), but my tentative sips reveal its refreshing (not overpowering) flavour. Palate cleansed, I get down to business: the podi roast dosa (Rs 46). Crisp without a hint of grease, its insides are coated with the distinctive house ‘gunpowder’ that melts away, distracting you with its mildly spicy aftertaste. And finally, I found the best at the last: stunning upma (Rs 32) that’s light, big-grained and fragrant.
For speedy, cheap and reliable vegetarian food, Coimbatore also relies on Geetha Café (Gopalapuram), established in the 1950s near the train station. We find seats and are promptly surrounded by ladies in wedding silks staying in the lodge above. Banana leaves are slapped down before us and the menu emerges with great insouciance. Undeterred, we focus on the hearty pongal with whole pepper (Rs 26), the crispy vadas (Rs 13) and the veggie-studded rava khichdi (Rs 26).
Full already? Walk around and work up an appetite because lunch is a serious affair. Break your stride, meanwhile, at one of the many delightful bakeries that stand on every street with a few tables and strong coffee. At Saraswati Bakery on Bazaar Street, try the extravagant multicoloured cream puffs, the coconut balls and the ubiquitous ‘Japanese’ cake—a buttery, creamy mess. At Aroma Bakery on D.B. Road tuck into samosas, packs of mini jam rolls, macaroons and Horlicks cake. Everything costs about Rs 20 and will make you giggle like a child.
If retro pastries are not your thing, Kovai’s streets have many other idiosyncratic offerings. On Big Bazaar Street is the Durghalal pickle store, for instance—two hands wide and eighty-three years old with giant jars of darkly swimming materials like tomato, gooseberry, plum and okra. On D.P. Road stands the new Ooty Shop which offers green and black tea in small glass mugs alongside Ooty chocolates, palm jaggery blocks, nutmeg jelly, pepper tea, chocolate tea, almond oil, kollu (horsegram) rasam paste and citron pickle. Then there’s Planet Soda, the soda chain that peddles cloyingly sweet fruit beer, fruit whisky, vodka and the baffling paneer soda (we did cryptic crosswords and remembered that in Tamil rosewater is called panneer!). In general, a little Tamil is indispensable to eat well in Kovai. It certainly helps if you don’t make your waiter cry by confusing kadhai (Hindi for wok), kaadai (Tamil for quail) and kadai (Tamil for shop).
For lunch, we head to Hari Bhavanam (HB) on Balasundram Road—an innocuous-looking mid-sized Chettinad restaurant. We begin with the superb chilli kaadai (Rs 65) or lightly marinated and fried quail with crispy skin and soft flesh, served with raw onion slices and a lemon squeeze. You will want more, but don’t be greedy. Try the duck curry (Rs 130) with its complex, peppery masala and tender meat. HB has a decadent variation on the ubiquitous kothu parotta called chilli parotta (Rs 50)—parottas dipped in spicy sauce, shredded and stir-fried with lots of onions, green chillies, tomatoes and curry leaves, served in a big steaming heap.
Warmed up, we prepare ourselves for the goat brain curry (Rs 80)—creamy, soufflé-like in consistency, resplendent with one fat green chilli. At HB you can also try crab, rabbit or guinea fowl. If you are feeling adventurous, ask for the blood fry. It turns out to be nothing like anything we’ve ever had before. Coagulated goat blood is boiled in water till it acquires the consistency of liver. Then tiny pieces of fried blood are served with dal, coconut, onions and green chillies. It has a deep echoing taste, mildly bitter in its thick meaty essence. Can’t stomach blood or brain curry? Try the ‘special Karandi omelette’ (Rs 50) —eggs whisked and cooked in a deep ladle and served fluffy and delicious in a cup.
After sunset, we make our way to Burma Bhai. Named after its founder Ibrahim who came from Burma to Coimbatore in 1965, Burma Bhai aka Hotel Chicken Choice is a small canteen near Nehru Stadium presided over by the handsome Ali (9842255586), Ibrahim’s grandson. There are about half a dozen tables and very few dishes, but brace yourself for the superlatives. Item 1: Thin tomato chicken gravy (Rs 100). Uncomplicated, not too tomatoey, and felt like it was made thirty seconds ago. Item 2: Pepper chicken (Rs 100) with freshly ground pepper and curry leaves sticking to the lightly charred shredded meat. No onions, no tomatoes, no chillies. Just pepper left to sizzle on the skin. Two of the best chicken dishes we’ve ever eaten. Item 3: There’s a kothu parotta too (Rs 120), combining shredded parottas, pepper chicken and scrambled eggs. I’d go to Coimbatore again just to eat this. And Item 4: Chicken drumsticks, fiery red and fried in a huge kadhai (Rs 100).
If Burma Bhai is a barefoot Kenyan runner, then Junior Kuppanna (JK) is a teenage American gymnast. A meal at JK has a rich, practised élan. The restaurant chain is named after Kupanna’s, the mothership in Erode. To find the Coimbatore branch drive towards Sarojini Street in Ramnagar and look for the sated hordes. Service is sweet, swift and perfect. Orders are taken on iPod touches hooked to the kitchen with wifi. We begin with thin, frothy buttermilk (Rs 25) and prawn chilli fry (Rs 150). The fat prawn in crisp orange batter looks generic, but o ye of little faith. We only stop eating it to try the Pallipalayam chicken (Rs 135), in which the familiar ingredients of onions, green chilli, red chilli and garlic combine with a minute quantity of oil to create a remarkably compulsive flavour. The tangy gravy is studded with coconut chips and crushed cardamom. JK’s is the kind of place where we rubberneck a lot, wanting “whatever she’s having”. And all around us there is a lot of having: mild mutton biryani (Rs 90) accompanied by a curry-smeared boiled egg, goat head curry (Rs 135) and tamarind-y fish curry cooked on dum (Rs 110). JK’s is also where the pachadi (in this case, crushed onion and ginger in curd) is so creamy you could just keep eating it. For a fantastic swansong, try the thin chilled payasam (Rs 40) with raisins, pista and crunchy fried vermicelli sticking out of the cup.
Biryani fans are in luck since there are so many fighting for the crown in Coimbatore. Anganan, a strong contender, is where we found the lightly spiced biryani (Rs 100) competent with well-cooked mutton and the famous short-grained seeraga samba rice. The chicken roast side was full of fresh pepper and curry leaves, fragrant but greasy (Rs 90). But Venu’s on Rajendra Prasad Road in Tatabad is likely to win this one. The mutton biryani (Rs 70) here with the short-grained rice and tender meat is balanced just right with pepper, curry leaves, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. Also try the kola urundai (meatball curry) at lunch, and don’t miss the biryani accompaniment of dalcha, a stew of mutton bones, chana dal and brinjal.
One of the more fashionable standalone restaurants is Alapenos on Bharathiyar Road, which used to have the charismatic chef Jacob Aruni as a consultant; unfortunately, the 36-year-old died of a heart attack a few months ago. Aruni was a famous TV chef but he was also interested in local food history, often reflected in the menus he designed. Our waiter describes the food here as fusion and serves me the least impressive meal I have in town. The best dishes are the ellumbu chaaru (the ultra-peppery clear mutton soup, Rs 80), the nethili or anchovy fry (Rs 170) and the appams (Rs 20). The rest of the menu faints under the weight of a strangely ‘Mughlai’ aesthetic: capsicum chunks and gloopy gravies.
We salvage the evening at Chin Chin at The Residency, where apparently all the exotic desserts in India come to hide. We watch a portly groupie pounce on Formula 1 driver Narain Karthikeyan before scooping up our fried ice cream (Rs 240), which is fun, if a little doughy. The batter on the golden fried lychees (Rs 220) stuffed with dates is chewy too, but do try the frozen stuffed lychees with chocolate sauce. I’m glad I saved some space for the local version of Malaysian ais kacang (Rs 240). Kacang is one of those divine inventions that convince you that Southeast Asia is the cradle of civilisation. Observe. Vanilla ice cream with fragile ice shavings, condensed milk on the icy slopes, rose syrup all over, plus salted crushed peanuts on top. And when you get to the bottom of the kacang, there’s a bunch of cool fruits waiting for you.
Our final meal in town prepares us for the awful Kallada bus service to Bangalore, which picks you up off the highway and refuses to stop for any breaks. Customers at Lakshmi Shankar Mess (Thadagam Road, near GCT College) have the casual reverence of regular temple-goers. It’s a small canteen with young husky men and old, toothless ladies serving ethereal meals on banana leaves. It’s all about healthy cooking here: roasted papadam, fresh tomato-onion chutneys and a wonderful spinach-dal poriyal. The potato curry is another marvel—mashed potatoes in thin coconut gravy. The set thali (Rs 65) comes with sambar, rasam, moru (seasoned buttermilk) and moru kozhambu (buttermilk curry with ash gourd). We eagerly scoop seconds of everything, followed by a golden payasam of coconut and jaggery, and stroll out convinced, yet again, that this has been the one meal we’d been hoping for.
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