Food Excursion to South India

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While your eyes are busy to grab the images, and your nose is in search of the smell, your unfortunate taste buds are getting betrayed. If you want justice, visit the beautiful southern states of India. Let’s begin our food excursion and we will start with Chennai and Pondicherry. We will take you through from breakfast to dinner one by one, so stay with us.

In a fine morning when you wake up in Chennai you need Coffee in Chennai! Don’t miss it! Please note I am speaking of coffee not tea. You will get two famous types of coffee in any state of southern India, 1^st one is Filter coffee and the other one is Kumbakonam degree coffee.

Filter coffee is a mixture of high quality locally grown coffee powder, milk and sugar. The style of making filter coffee is different which makes it special. On the other hand degree coffee is special type of coffee is made with degree milk which means pure milk and this is the specialty of this item. This is very dense and really hard coffee and taste awesome. So don’t forget to try this one.

Once you are done with Coffee, you need a healthy breakfast. Lots of varieties are available for you. Let me take you to a famous shop which is named Murugam Idly shop. Although it named as Idly shop, you will get every item you need for your breakfast. Remember they serve pure south Indian style breakfast. You will get verities of Idly, Vada, Doda, Uttappam and delicious Pongal. Take your time and try to taste as much you can.

Not only Murugan Idly Shop, you will get good quality breakfast in SaravanaBhavan, Sangeetha veg restaurant and AnandaBhavan.

Here I want to make a special mention. If you are travelling to Kanchipuram from Chennai, you will get Shree Adhinatha restaurant, and each and every item of this restaurant is simply WOW.

So let’s summarize, checkout below authentic restaurant list for your quick reference:

Restaurant Name	Specialty	Location
Murugan Idly shop	Idli, Onion Uttapam, Sweet pongal, Dosa, Jigarthanda	Park Town, Porur, TNagar, Ashok Nagar, Velachery and lot more
Shree Adhinatha restaurant	Dosa, Filter Cofee, Ghee Idly	Nazarathpettai
AnandaBhaban		Mylapore, Velachery, Nungambakkam ,Triplicane and lot more

Now let’s move ahead for our lunch. Chettinadu lunch, rich in spices is the most popular cook method in Tamilnadu. If you are in Chennai and missed Chettinadu lunch, you will miss an important bullet from your checklist. There are several good quality restaurants in Chennai that offers you authentic south Indian food and you might be confused where to eat. Let me sort out top 3 restaurants for you and you can keep one for your dinner also. The top rated budget restaurant is Sangeetha Veg Restaurant, simply superb food with lots of Varity. Try there special veg Thali, you will get ten types of items in this Thali including Sambar, Rasham, Kuzhambu, Rice, Coconut rice, Papad, 2 types of sabzi, puri, kesarpayesam. You will be tired to finish the thali. The 2^nd option is Hotel SaravanaBhavan, and it is simply WOW. You will get almost same menu like Sangeetha, but taste is a bit different. Both taste good. Sangeetha is more spicy than SaravanaBhavan. The third one is AnandaBhavan, foods of this restaurant is made of pure ghee and worth to taste.

You must be feeling tired right? All right now take some quick rest. We need to refuel us for other varietiesof foods. Once you done with enough rest and feeling refreshing, let’s move to street food section. Rush to ‘Fruit Shop onGreams Road’ to taste good quality Juice and Falooda. Falooda of this place is awesome. You can also try Juice World, Amudham Juice Shop and Aqua. 

Check out restaurant lists in details below for lunch:

Restaurant Name	Specialty	Location
Sangeetha veg restaurant	Special south Indian thali	Adyar, Egmore, Nandambakkam, Guindy and lot more
Saravanabhavan	Special south Indian thali	Egmore, T Nagar, Anna Nagar, Mylapore and more
Fruit Shop on Greams Road	Juice, Falooda	Greams Road, Besant Nagar, Meenambakkam
Juice World	Mocktail, Falooda	Alwarpet, Saidapet, TNagar

Let’s wrap up our day with a healthy dinner. You can try one restaurant which you didn’t tried in your lunch. Let me add more restaurant here if you want spicy food, Palm Jumeira, Savoury sea shell if you like sea food and 1947, Veg restaurant. These shops serves good quality food.

Restaurant Name	Specialty	Location
Palm Jumeira	North Indian food	Greams road
Savoury sea shell	Crab, Masala, Squid paper fry	Annanagar East, Velachery, Perungudi, Greams road
1947, Veg restaurant	Paneer tikka masala	Khader Nawaz Khan Rd, Thousand Lights.

Here we are at Puducherry, a town ruled by French. Chennai to Puducherry is 160km. Pondicherry/Puducherry, a small town Kissing Bay of Bengal, full of energy, its food Variety is uncountable. Welcome to Pondicherry.

Start your day with Coffee and don’t forget to take some cookies with it. Get some good quality cookies from AnandaBhavan, Nuts and Spices and Auro Café. You will get good quality of breads and cakes also. Pondicherry is heaven for bakery lovers, in every road you will find bakery shops and all of them maintain their quality.

Now if you are in Pondicherry and going for breakfast, you have two options. Either take south Indian food or take French food, French food is highly recommended. Let me take you to some good French restaurant. Rush to ‘Baker Street’, one of the famous French restaurants in Pondy. You will get plenty of verity which are enough to confuse you.

You will get Varity of sandwiches, Tarts, Pastry, Breads and lot more.Remember price is a bit high in this place but it is affordable for once or twice in your tour.

Other good restaurants you can try are Crepe in Touch, Velo Café, Cafe des Arts.

Let’s move to Lunch and you should try Surguru Spot restaurant. Food quality and Varity of this place is superb.

Once you are done with your lunch, go ahead and take some rest by watching sea from your hotel balcony. I am sure you will be refreshed by it.

Now if you are in Pondicherry and haven’t tried good quality ice cream then you will miss a lot. So don’t waste your time and go to GMT ice cream shop. You can’t believe in your eyes how much verity of ice cream they have. If you eat 2 types in a day, it will take more than two weeks for you to finish all items. 

Ok it’s enough….. Really? Have you done your dinner? No right!!!!! Let’s go and have some mouthwatering sea food dinner. Try two restaurants Fish Aurant and De BlueFin. You will get all you need for your dinner. These places are heaven for Squid, Lobster, Crabs, Sharks and lots of other verity of sea food. If you are in Fish Aurant don’t forget to try chef’s special sea food platter, best in Pondicherry. It includes fish finger, chicken chips, soups, eggs, squids, fish fry, crabs, fish curry, rice, payesam and lot more.

             

Also try De BlueFIn, their Malabar Fish/Prawn curry and Lobster need special mention. Do try them all.

Restaurant Name	Specialty	Location
AnandaBhavan	Dosa, Pongal, Uttapam	241, Mission street,
Nuts and Spices	Local spices	MG Road
Aura Café	Cakes, Cookies, Organic tarts	16 Goubert Avenue, Beach Road
Baker street	Tuna sandwich,Tarts, French breakfast	123, Bussy street
Creep in touch	Brehat, Molene, Lorient, Ouessant, Batz	29, Needarajapayar Street
Surguru spot	Special Chettinaduthali	12, JN Street, White Town
GMT ice cream shop	Verities of ice cream	Beach Rd, White Town
Fish Aurant	Chef’s special sea food platter	37, Kamatchi Amman Kovil St, Near Tanishq, Heritage Town
De Bluefin	Lobster, Malabar prawn curry	18/A, Sri Aurobindo St, Heritage Town

With all these varieties, I think, your taste buds got justice. If your stomach still cries, subscribe Xploredinfo. We will notify you with our next food excursion.

That’s all folks…. keep in touch with us for more mouthwatering foodie articles.

Note: We try to share our personal experience with our readers. All the restaurant names taken here are based on personal experiences. This is not intended for any advertisement or promotion.

Saikat Sarkhel

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