During my short stay in Chennai I only had two or three chances to try Tamillian cuisine. My cousins and I had heard of a popular franchise called Hotel Saravana Bhavan. This vegetarian restaurant offers a huge range of Tamillian dishes as well as indo-Chinese and some north Indian favourites.
We enjoyed many Tamillian dishes but for our evening meals (when our stomachs craved something hearty) we all had the popular Chennai/Tamil Nadu thalis (pronounced "thaalee"). A thali is a large meal generally consisting of many (at least 5 different) food items including rice, roti, curries, curd, chutneys, pickle and sweets. All of these items are presented on a large thal (tray), hence the name. It is common for each region or state to have its own thali which showcases their favourite and traditional food (e.g. Punjabi thali, Gujarati thali, Rajasthani thali etc).
The chennai thali at Saravana Bhavan was served on a large banana leaf (common for South Indian meals) and had 14 different food items. Yes, FOURTEEN. My cousin was in shock when it arrived in front of him - he didn't know where to start or the best way to eat the items which were new to us north Indians. We soon learnt that there was no one right way to eat it. Thalis are a great way for food lovers to get their creative hats on and try new combinations by mixing the various sabzis, sambar, rassam and chutneys with rice or papad and roti. Another cool thing about thalis in some restaurants is that the items may be "bottomless" so you have the option of having second and third helpings of the items that you liked.
Even though we were completely stuffed, we finished the meal off with some nice Indian ice cream (mango, chikku and kulfi) and some traditional filter coffee which is always fun.
I highly recommend that you eat at Saravana Bhavan. The staff were friendly and explained everything clearly in English/Hindi (contradicts the misconception that people have thinking that the locals of Chennai will only speak to you in their local language) and the food was delicious.
Chennai has many activities and attractions but in my books the Chennai thali takes the prize as "Pride of the South".
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