It has been a while since I wrote anything about food, at least couple of months now. During this time, I did eat out, but just didn’t blog about it. 🙂 At least the urge to eat just for the sake of writing, has subsided a bit I think 😉
Anyway, today myself and a friend were returning home from Anna Nagar and immediately my foodie antenna started scanning places around. Remembered seeing an ad for Madurai Kumar Mess in the newspapers and decided to check it out. This restaurant is located right next to Lakshman Sruthi Musicals between Ashok Pillar and Vadapalani in a hotel called Adore Residency. I hoped we weren’t too late as it was already 10:00PM by the time we entered.
This place was meant to open a few months back and since then, so many hardcore non-veg lovers have been waiting for it to happen. Finally they opened and understandably, it was packed at 10:00PM in the night. We managed to squeeze in and give our names to the guy who was regulating the allotment of seats 🙂
The interiors were neat, and lights were bright enough. We had to share the table with another duo as the restaurant was packed and we couldn’t have the table to ourselves. Normally in the non-AC section of Veg restaurants, this is pretty much a norm, but I was surprised that it was the same here too. Anyway, with focus on food, these little things sounded too trivial and unimportant. After about 10 minutes, the waiter felt sorry for us and decide to serve water. Literally, a glass of water. It was different compared to most of the places where you get water served in ever-silver tumblers. Then after five minutes, a guy placed plantain leaves on our table. The next five minutes we spent washing and cleaning the leaf. Anyway there was no sign of the waiter. After our patience was pushed to quite an extent, a person showed up who agreed to take the order, though the ‘official’ waiter was still stuck with another table. We decided to keep it simple – One Chicken Dosa for me, One Mutton Dosa for my friend and a chicken Omelette to share. Mutton Dosa was not available, so my friend opted for 2 Kal Dosas instead. Chicken Dosa came in less than 5 minutes, piping hot. It was priced at 240 bucks, but was quite small in size. It tasted good, but in my mind, somehow I couldn’t justify its price. Chicken Omelette was priced at 220 bucks and was quite good, but again same thoughts about the price. Chicken Omelete came in small pieces and left me wondering if it was meant to be like that or was just poor cooking skills. Anyway, I would have loved the Omelette fully round. Kal Dosa meant for our table was served to the next table and that guy happily pounced on it 🙂 My friend was left waiting for another 10 minutes and it came with a profound apology from the waiter. The chutneys were good and the gravy (chicken I think) was very tasty. Since these items weren’t enough for us, I ordered 1 Chicken Biryani. Again with an apology, we were told that only ‘Biryani minus Chicken’ (Kuska) was available. As it was 10:30PM by then, it was understandable. In addition to that, they were just a few days old and teething issues are bound to happen. Biryani was made of seeragasamba rice and tasted good. No complaints with the food. It was very tasty. Finally wanted to check out one Parotta because that tells a lot about a restaurant- served hot, or cold or reheated. It was straight out of the tava and was very very very soft and layered. One of the best Parottas I have eaten in recent times. The last time I remember having such parottas was in Junior Kuppanna, absolutely impressed!
Asked for the bill and the dinner set us back by about 800 bucks and it was well worth it. The menu card had a lot of North-Indian stuff and Chinese too and that didn’t sound very authentic. I’ve not had food in the original Kumar Mess in Madurai, but going by the taste, it didn’t disappoint and after the initial phase, it will only get better I suppose. Would certainly recommend for hardcore non-veg lovers.
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