Foodies’ delight

Enter Narada Gana Sabha. Go past the auditorium to its backyard. Stumble upon a huge pandal straight out of a movie set. With separate ‘stalls’ for coffee, sweets, parotta , dosai , aapam / idiyappam / kuzhipaniyaram , a mobile kitchen kept impressively clean, a huge mineral water plant, coolers and hot cases, this is a happening place!

Run by Gnanambiga Catering services with N. Jayarama Iyer at its helm, this canteen has been functioning since 1988 from Dec 15 to Jan 1, considered the ‘peak season’ every year. While Jayarama Iyer himself looks like a sage disinterested in the outcome of this mammoth enterprise, his sons, Vittal, Ramesh, Hari and daughter, Usha, can be spotted all over the place supervising the service and enquiring after customers. All of them look burly and well-fed — a good sign that the food is rich and made in ‘pure’ ghee. They make 50 items in a day and almost all of them taste delicious. Which explains why the crowd keeps coming back for more.

“

Vaango, vaango! Enna saapadrael ?

Vadai sooda irukku !”, announces one of the brothers as if he were hosting a family wedding. I decide to try the rare items on the menu, which has a staggering amount of delicacies a foodie can absolutely not resist. I try the

ammani kozhukattai , capsicum

paruppu usili sevai ,

semiya pongal ,

potato vadai from the South Indian fare. I sample the

kulcha and

palak panneer rather reluctantly, but firmly turn down the chaat-s, juice, milkshake and hot

parotta -s. Without a doubt, the south Indian food wins in authenticity and taste. Courteous waiters bring on the perfectly textured wheat

halwa , a light-yellow pineapple

halwa mild on sugar and ghee, and the

Ashok halwa popularised in Tiruvaiyaru.

“This has become like a food festival,” Vittal states, unable to hide his pride at being in charge of the most popular canteen in the season. “We use only mineral water and the ‘highest-quality’ ingredients for cooking. We have 75 people working here and they are paid very well and looked after as family.”

But aren’t the prices a bit steep for relatively small portions? Vittal disagrees strongly: “Prices have increased but the crowd has not diminished one bit. In fact, NRIs come back year after year and we have the general public patronising only us and not the concerts!”

And Gnanambika returns every year for a fortnight that has thousand customers eating out of their hands everyday!

(Dharma Raman is a dancer and freelance writer.)