It starts with prawn pickle. And then they arrive, one by one: pepper chicken, tomato chicken, offal fry, country chicken semi-gravy, turkey fry, boiled egg, chicken biryani…The signature non-veg meal at Nanjai Virundhu turns out to be an assault on the senses. We settle down for a feast one nippy December afternoon as the restaurant prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary. .
Nanjai Virundhu is located near a coconut farm in quaint Nanjundapuram. The founder S Kumar came up with the idea of serving Kongu-style non-vegetarian meals offered to the new mappilai (bride-groom) of the household. “This is a popular tradition in the Kongu belt, where the mappilai is treated to a non-veg heavy feast,” explains Kumar, adding that the recipes are from the region. “We try and stay away from colouring agents and flavour enhancers, and offer home-style meals,” he says.
Here, a typical meal consists of 17 dishes. The sides are the specialty, then there is biryani. Each preparation is different: the tomato chicken is tangy, and mildly-sweet, while the offal dishes are fiery and come with a good dose of curry leaves; country chicken fry has plenty of pepper and coriander, while turkey curry has a tempering of broken red chillies. The seeraga-samba chicken biryani is a highlight: it is on the spicier side, but ticks all the boxes of a good biryani. The biryani comes with a watery coconut-based chicken curry, but we suggest you give it a pass and have the biryani as is to savour the seeraga samba goodness as a whole.
The staff explain each dish when they are served, and give us friendly nudges to polish off the sides before we venture on to a second helping of biryani. The meal is unlimited, and they offer to refill dishes twice, thrice, and even four times. Halfway through the meal, crispy quail fry arrives, followed by deep-fried nethili fish. There is also white rice as part of the meal, served with mutton or chicken kozhambu, and the nethu veccha (yesterday’s) meen kozhambu. “This is one of our specialties,” explains Kumar. “Fish curry always tastes better when had a day or two after it is made.”
It takes us almost 45 minutes to finish the meal, and several people who started along with us, are still eating. That’s the thing with lunch at Nanjai Virundhu: one can take as long as an hour on the meal, even as more options appear on the banana leaf. We finish off with mildly-sweet vermicelli payasam and prepare to leave, when we realise there is something else: ice-cream.
Open for lunch from 12.30 to 4pm. A meal is priced at ₹630. Dinner has idli, dosai, chapatis, and parotta with non-vegetarian sides, open from 6.30pm to 10.30pm. There are gifts and combo offers on December 25, on occasion of the restaurant completing 10 years. Nanjai Virundhu is located at 170, Parsn 3rd Gate Road, Nanjundapuram Road. For details, call 9840556898.
