Happy tummies

Nei Idly Sambar is named after its speciality dish — big white fluffy idlis, doused in fragrant ghee and soaked in spicy, flavourful sambar. In addition, it also offers four varieties of podi idli (spicy, karvepillai, ellu and poondu) fiery and gleaming with a vibrant orange coat, idli with vadakari, filter kaapi and goli soda. “Since this is a Chennai-based food truck, we wanted the dishes to be quintessentially Chennai. The ghee used is made by Aditya’s aunt. “It’s organic and smells great,” he says. The batter for the idli too is made by her. With plans to add one new dish every month, recipes are being tested out. Uthappam and a few varieties of dosa (ghee, chilli cheese and podi) are in the offing. Among their ambitious plans is something called lava idli.

Nei Idly Sambar is open from 6 pm to 11 pm at Drive ‘n’ Eats, Vasu Street, behind Ega Theatre, Kilpauk. For details call: 9840561061

Alien Stone

Flashes of electric pink light radiate from a hulking black object at Palavakkam Beach. Fear not, it’s just Alien Stone, a food truck that’s been a regular at this spot since October 2018.This truck has all the fast food favourites: golden fries (in seven varieties including mushroom, lime and cheese), burgers, fish fingers and milk shakes. They even make steaks.

On most evenings, their solid assorted burgers, no bun burgers and prawn frizzles draw crowds who surround the food truck, like fans around a rockstar. While customers wait, they can play a game of Speed of Light — an arcade game — that’s built into the side of the vehicle.

The kitchen has three people whipping up the dishes, “We make sure to clear out the stock for the day with some special offers at night, so we get fresh products daily,” he says.

Alien Stone is parked at Karunanidhi Beach Road, Palkalai Nagar, Palavakkam. It is open between 5.30 pm and 11 pm. For details, call: 8939866899

MIDNIGHT MOR

in Thousand Lights leads customers to Rajan, selling chilled buttermilk off his old TVS 50

Tufts of yellow sponge peek out of the torn black seat of a classic green TVS 50 parked on Murugesan Complex Road, Greams Road. Mounted on it is a red plastic pot serving fresh buttermilk, every night between 9 pm and 4 am.

Eighteen years ago, he sold the buttermilk off his TVS 50 for ₹3. Today, the drink costs ₹30 and Chetta employs four people at his shop.

He now sells tea, veg puffs, bun-butter-jam, samosas and veg rolls as well. Chetta also takes catering orders for wedding and parties. “Our USP is that we function during the night”, says D Arvind who has been working at Chetta’s for 13 years. “Even at 2 am in the morning, there are customers flooding in. It is mostly IT workers who come at that hour. Our customers are mainly from Sowcarpet and Nungambakkam, but some come from Ambattur, Avadi, Poonamallee, ECR and Kovalam as well,” he says.

Rajan says that the curd for this buttermilk comes from a dairy farm in Walajabad, Kanchipuram district. “The curd arrives at 4 am and we make around 50 litres of buttermilk at 4 pm everyday.”

With visibility on the Internet, location availability on Google Maps and open options of Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm for payments, Chetta Buttermilk is customer-friendly. “We hope to tie up with Zomato within a month’s time,” he says.

 

Triplicane Ramadan Walk

Against the fading evening light, the Big (Wallajah) Mosque stands tall in Triplicane and is brimming with people, all decked up. Soon, it will be time to break the fast. And so, we are guided to the right wing of the mosque where a line of women sit on cane mats, their bowls filled with generous amounts ofnombu kanji . We too, are asked to sit and before we know it, we are being served:nombu kanji, vegetable fried rice, onion samosas, rose milk and so on. They don’t heed to our repeated requests to serve less -- “No, it’s okay, please have as much as you can” and move to the next line. Before long, as theazaanresounds in the air, everyone begins feasting.

This is from where the fourth edition of The Park Ramadan walk begins, to discover the iconic places in Triplicane that serveiftardelicacies. “This mosque shows the best example of living in harmony. Many non-Muslims, especially Gujaratis and Sindhis, set up shop during Ramzan. In fact, they make the food and serve too,” says Chef Ashutosh Nerlekar, who curated the walk.

After a one-and-a-half kilometre walk, we reach Fakir Street which houses the famous Basha Halwawala: the board outside declares “no branches” as the empty ‘New Basha Halwawala’ looks on from the opposite side.

Dumka roat is the first dessert in line. Easily the highlight of the walk, this sweet is the perfect combination ofsooji, khoa,ghee and sugar. It has a gooey consistency and the strongly caramelised bits on top taste like toffee. The sweetness is not overpowering, making a second or third serving possible.

It’s time to end the evening with hot badam milk. An old man on a scooter selling attar directs us to a badam milk outlet, called Mani Lassi Shop. The simmering milk fills a steel cauldron up to the brim. A man scoops up the boiling drink in a ladle and pours it diagonally from atop — the action is done to separate the cream from the milk. As people watch, he serves glass after glass of steaming badam milk; with and without a dollop of cream on top, depending on customer preferences. The milk is a soothing respite to an evening of sampling most of Triplicane’s most colourful culinary secrets.