If you are on the lookout for food that is somewhat spicy, then head straight to Savya Rasa, part of the Pricol Gourmet Enterprise, where they are organising a Chettinad food festival till the end of the month. The amazing part of this food festival is that although Chettinad food is touted to be a hot affair, yet the level of spices add more flavour than fire to the food here. You can also find a variety of mocktails here that have very interesting origins.
We started off with a Jujube Tart. This is a combination of Jujube concentrate, powder, tamarind, saline and apple juice. It was a refreshing and light beverage, quite well suited to a hot day like the day we had gone there.
First of course, we must start with the soup, and ours was the healthy option, Chettinad Vazhai thandu. This was a soup made from banana stem with onions, green chillies and a combination of spices. The initial taste was quite creamy, though this ne had a bit of sharpness on the palate thanks to the green chillies.
Chef recommended that we try the Karuveppilai sola varuval, which were strips of baby corn blended with curry leaves and spices and then deep fried. This one was more of an acquired taste, and though it might satisfy some, clearly this was not to my taste.
The next starter, however, was a banger – Kari sundiya, minced mutton cooked with Chettinad spices and made up into round balls and held together with plantain fibre, before being deep fried. Taking that plantain fibre off requires some skill, but the effort is worth it – the mutton is soft, and more importantly, it tastes meaty, in spite of all the spices – just how it should be. This was surely a star item.
Yeral Thokku was our choice of the the main course, and it had prawns stir fried with onions, tomatoes, green chillies and some Chettinad spices. This was surely one of the best applications of prawns and spices that we have experienced, and in combination with some hot appams, this can give you a taste of what heaven feels like. Disappearing faster than ice cream on a scorching day, we marked this offering to be the finest in the menu.
We cannot visit a restaurant and not have the biriyani there, so it was a chicken biriyani for us (the other option was a mushroom) made with jeeraga samba rice, chicken and of course that wonderful spice mix. The presentation included half a boiled egg delicately balanced on top but the taste was quite good, and paired well with the raita served alongside.
Dessert was interesting. Kandharappam is a traditional Chettinad wedding dessert, made with rice, black gram and jaggery. Served here with a dollop of fresh cream, it has a very interesting taste but can be quite hard in itself, hence the genius idea to combine cream with it. Paal Paniyaram, on the other hand, is soft, fluffy rice and black grams made into dumplings and soaked in milk that has been sweetened with jaggery. Very light on the stomach, and a perfect ending to what is unarguably one of the finest Chettinad meals you can have in Chennai.
Meal for two: INR 2,500++ On till April 30th. 12-3:30 pm, 6:30-11 pm. Savya Rasa, 2/10, Gandhi Mandapam Rd, Chitra Nagar, Kotturpuram, Chennai, 600085