Food festival review: Take this delicious temple trail

To give Chennai foodies a sampling of the sacred offerings from temple towns, chef Balaji Natarajan of Hyatt Regency Chennai along with Rakesh Raghunathan of Puliyogare Travels have joined hands for an ongoing food festival, The Pilgrim’s Palate. The duo (Rakesh and chef Balaji) have special curated course by course menu for the festival, that changes daily. 

We started off with thakkali rasam served in small clay pots. The tomato rasam with loads of pepper and garnished with coriander leaves was flavourful, aromatic and had a lovely blend of spices. 

This was followed by three appetisers as second course – Kanchipuram idli, Azhagar kovil dosa and selvar appam. They were served with freshly ground podi, ghee and a zingy puli inji. The idli, cooked with rice and whole urad dal batter in wicker baskets lined with mandharai leaves for over an hour, were not really the fluffy kinds (which is what most of us prefer) but rather dense. It had flavour of pepper and ginger, which we liked. The Azhagar kovil dosa was made almost of the same batter as the idli but shallow fried on tawa till crisp outside and soft inside. If you like the light, crispy do sas, you might not really like this one. The selvar appam, made with raw rice soaked, ground and fermented and then fried in a mix of oil and ghee, was crispy and light. We devoured it. 

The appetisers were followed by mangai kosumalli , which acted as a palate cleanser made with raw mango and grated coconut. For the main course, we were served first with the ven pongal (not the mushy variety as grains of rice and dal could be distinguished) served with a spoon of ghee and Chidambaram gothsu. No prizes for guessing the latter is a take on the dish served in Chidambaram temple made with country brinjals. The tangy tamarind based curry replete with aroma of fennel, coriander and ginger is just the perfect accompaniment to the slightly bland pongal.

This is followed by the puliyo dorai and karamani kuzhambu from Kethandapatti. The pepper-heavy pulioyodorai is aptly balanced by the sweetness of jaggery used in the kuzhambu. It was the best pairing of the evening. 

To add a sweet touch towards the end, we were served poori payasam and akkaravadisal. The flaky, rava poori broken and added in the rich payasam was my favourite dessert of the evening as it was not overwhelmingly sweet. But for all others akkaravadisal, made with raw rice, moong dal and jaggery was the festival favourite. 

The festival is on till February 5.

Cuisine: South Indian 

Contact: 044 4991 9962 

Rating: 3 stars out of 5