Mylapore Rayar Café

The HinduA view of Mami Mess, at Mylapore in Chennai. Photo: R. Ravindran

A search for some of the oldest surviving small eat outs of the city reveals an interesting facet, that of family businesses that have survived the test of time.

                

Well past their heyday and not really a competition to the gourmet fare that has come to define the city in the past decade, these eateries survive on the decades of reputation that their founders and successors have built. Their charm remains in their “homely food” promise.

Nestled in Arundale Street off Kutchery Road in Mylapore is possibly one of the oldest surviving eateries of the city — the Madras Rayar Mess (previously Rayar Café). Brothers P. Kumar and P. Mohan are the third generation of the family that is running the pure vegetarian eatery that has a reputation for serving idlis, dosas and even chutney that has had a constant benchmark in taste. They had taken over running the mess from their father Padmanabha Rao.           

P. Kumar says Rayar Café was started “some 70 years ago” by their grandfather Srinivasa Rao, who had arrived in Madras from their ancestral village near Villupuram.

In its heyday through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the Café was situated on Kutcheri Road, next to the Post Office. Among its leading patrons were the film stars of the black and white era, including comedian ‘Thengai’ Srinivasan. One of the regular patrons from then on till date is actor turned political journalist ‘Cho’ Ramasamy, who until a few months ago, used to visit the café at least three times a week.

Though the going is not as rosy as in the past, the brothers keep the Rayar Mess running on the dot for the two services a day – 7 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. serving idly, vada and pongal; and from 3 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. serving rava dosai, adai and a sweet. The menu is modest but the taste is spectacular as regulars verify.

A slightly newer mess, but with just as strong family connections, is the Mami Tiffin Shop on Pitchupillai Street near Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. A small eatery founded by an enterprising Brahmin lady ‘Vasantha Mami’ in 1969 has today become one of the well known hotels in the area. Her sons G. Murugan and G. Kapaleeswaran run the hotel under the banner ‘Vinayaga Caterers’ but out of respect for their mother and the several generations of patrons who have frequented the eatery, have retained the name ‘Mami Tiffin Shop’.

“Our mother started it as a bhakshana kadai (snack store) in our thinnai. For several years, people used to call it thinnai kadai,” G. Murugan recalls.“Till even last decade, we used to serve the snacks inmanthara elai. Thavala vadai and idly milagai podi were our specialties.”

A photo of Vasantha mami adorns the wall right next to the till. On Wednesday, K. Vasanth, her grandson, was manning the counter. The legacy lives on.

Karthik Subramanian The Hindu 7 Aug 2014

woods Road :A brew for every age, with a slice of buttered bun

For over 40 years, these Irani tea stalls have been serving customers their special ‘dhum’ tea with bun-butter-jam. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam

Driving past Conron Smith Road or Woods Road, it is easy to miss the small red-and-white boards that read ‘Irani’. But anyone who has walked down the road in the heat, looking for shelter from the sun, will gladly remember the piping hot tea, bun-butter-jam and the small, crisp samosas served by these tea stalls.

For over 40 years, these Irani tea stalls have been serving customers their special ‘dum’ tea with bun-butter-jam. Their tea is made in special utensils that are vacuum-sealed, and the water and tea are boiled for an hour.

Dates in History

 

1900s

The first Irani families are said to have settled in Madras

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1960s 

Irani cafes sprang up across the city. National cafe on Mount Road and Cafe Zum Zum on Second Line Beach were especially famous. Over the years, other communities have gotten involved in the running of the shops

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Standout Dishes

 

Dum Tea, mini samosas and
bun-butter-jam

Almost all the people who visit the stalls today are regulars who have been coming in for over decades. One of the regulars to the Conron Smith tea stall, M. Nirmal, has been coming here for nearly 20 years. “The best thing about the Irani shops is the special tea. The tea is completely different from any other place in the city and at Rs. 8, the price is very reasonable,” he said.

Deepak Kumaraswamy, another patron, appreciates the bun-butter-jam as an accompaniment to tea. “Both the regular tea and the special tea have a distinct taste and it’s a place that I definitely visit whenever I am in the area,” he said.

Many patrons have fond memories of the Irani tea stall on Woods Road. E. Chandran remembers the days when he used to regularly visit there. “The stall was located right next to the Midland theatre. We used to cycle down from Anna Nagar to watch the movie. As soon as we bought the ticket, we would rush straight to the stall and have a tea with their samosas,” he said.

The first two cafés were opened in the 1960s and once they became popular, more opened, son of the founder, Behram Irani, says.

His father, Marazman Behram Irani, started the Irani tea stall on Walltax Road. Earlier, the family used to run the National Café, and then the Romex Hotel near the Midland theatre. “After a certain point of time, he decided to change his business plan and started focussing on the small Irani tea stalls. None of the stalls are larger than 150 square feet, and the special tea, made in a sealed vessel, along with his bun-butter-jam and mutton samosas would draw large crowds every day,” Mr. Irani said.

The stalls that are around today, however, are a shadow of what they used to be. The business plan is slightly different.

 The owners now produce the samosas and puffs at a central bakery. The mutton samosas have given way to vegetarian ones. Their recipe for their tea, however, has not changed.

Kavitha Kishore The Hindu 8 Aug 2014

Madras qurma and masala chops: pages out of Anglo-Indian fare

The latter half of the 19 century in the port city of Madras found Colonel Kenney-Herbert, an Englishman serving in the British Indian Army, extremely annoyed.

Despite having scoured through various books, an adequate cooking guide for the average Englishman in India simply could not be found. Wasting no further time, he produced Culinary Jotting for Madras, a ‘treatise in thirty chapters on reformed cookery for Anglo-Indian exiles’, under the pen name ‘Wyvern’.

In 1878, Higginbothams published the first edition of the book traversing 30 dinners of multiple-course meals.

While Wyvern’s love for English cuisine was unquestionable, the dependence on tinned foods was something he particularly despised. This meant introducing new garden habits or using local ingredients in ingenious ways to suit the Victorian palate.

Vikram Doctor, a food writer, says, “I was so surprised to learn that Jerusalem artichokes were grown in Chetpet around 140 years ago! Topinambours a la Chetput was one of his signature dishes.”

However, Wyvern was not the first to conceive of a recipe book dedicated to serve expatriate Britishers in India. An anonymous ‘Old Lady-Resident’, it appears, beat him to it with The Madras Cookery Book, a bilingual in English and Tamil published in 1877.

Beatrix D’ Souza, former MP and an old-time Anglo-Indian resident of the city, confesses that some of the dishes mentioned in these cookbooks are still made by many in the community. “Madras qurma, bully beef, and masala chops are all dishes typical of both our community and the city,” she says.

The famous Railway Running Room recipes, a treasure the community prides itself on, boasts of delicacies such as mutton breast bake, head bake, and kutti pi (made of the unborn kid in the goat’s womb). These were made by cooks stationed in running rooms, for engine drivers who halted to rest en route to various destinations.

Dr. D’Souza, who is now over 75, emphasises that tinned meat and sardines from Spencers on Mount Road, fish patties, and specially-made ding ding (marinated dried meat) for long journeys were other staples that people of the community consumed.

Be it fish curry or the Brightons pudding, the Anglo-Indian cuisine in Madras seems to have not merely fused the best of two worlds, but also made it its own.

Nityamenon the Hindu 10 Aug 2014

Mylapore Meenakshi Ammal’s Samaithu paar : Kitchen wisdom from the 50s is still cream of crop

Priya Ramkumar, Meenakshi Ammal’s granddaughter-in-law, believes that Samaithu 


Paar has found new audiences in contemporary times Photo: Special Arrangement

House number 188 (now, 184) on R.K. Mutt Road in Mylapore is a haloed address that compels recognition when mapping the culinary history of Madras city. After all, it housed Meenakshi Ammal, the author of one the first Indian cookbook series, Samaithu Paar (Cook and See), published way back in 1951.

Brought out first in Tamil and later in English in 1968, the book bears a jacket, carrying a woodblock print of a young woman stirring a pot, which underlines the demographic the book essentially targeted — young Tamil brides eager to please their in-laws.

Seventy-year-old Lakshmi Venkatesan, a resident of Eldams road in Alwarpet, remembers her father gifting her the three-volume series as soon as her marriage was fixed, when she was all of eighteen. “If you wanted to learn how to cook everyday vegetarian south Indian dishes likesambar and rasam, there was no better guide to look up,” she says.

Through elaborate, and often tedious, instructions, Meenakshi mami,as she was often called, became a presence in many kitchens.

Fifty-year-old Janaki Lakshman, who inherited her copy of the book from her mother, says, “It’s like a grandmother walking you through preparations. Even if you want to make dosai, she starts by telling you how to heat the pan to an optimum temperature.” It is the detail and consistency in measurements through the series that makes the cookbook a classic, observes Ms. Lakshman.

According to food historian Vikram Doctor, it was key socio-political developments which fed the cookbook’s popularity. He says, “It was around the 1930s when the civil services were being increasingly opened up to Indians. Many south Indian Brahmins were being posted outside of Madras.” The need to recreate food to comfort the homesick palate was what made the cookbook a tremendous success.

However, women’s relationship with the cookbook at the time was a seemingly complicated one. While some openly acknowledged their dependence on it, others did so in secret. Ms. Venkatesan says, “Referring to a book to cook was not considered a virtue.” The expectation of women of a marriageable age was possession of these skills, already well-honed.

Priya Ramkumar, Meenakshi Ammal’s granddaughter-in-law, believes that Samaithu Paar has found new audiences in contemporary times. “IIT students and south Indians who settle abroad now are increasingly placing orders for the book.”

Be it young brides or homesick students, Meenakshi Ammal has educated the uninitiated, over generations.

Nityamenon The Hindu 10 Aug 2014

Mylapore Karpagambal Mess.mess dishes out southern flavours

A trip to Mylapore is not considered complete without a pit stop at Mylai Karpagambal 

Mess. Photo: S.S. Kumar

Right from the banana leaf to the hot kaapi, everything about this place screams Madras.

If you guessed Mylai Karpagambal Mess, then you are bang on target. A trip to Mylapore is never complete if you have not stepped into this modest restaurant for a bite or a cup of degree coffee.

Dates in History

1950

Mylai Karpagambal Mess opened to the public

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1989 

The mess did away with the meals, and the present menu of variety rice and light tiffin was launched

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2010

The mess underwent renovation

Did you know !

When the mess was started 65 years ago, it was a place which served meals for 50 people. People used to come here for our potato podimas, beans usili, avial, amd lemon and pineapple rasam

“Young or old, they still prefer filter coffee to cold coffee and pongal to pizzas,” says S. Prabhu Das, who has taken over the responsibility of the restaurant from his father, R. Soundarajan.

 The eat-out has something old and something new to attract new customers, and yet retains its original flavour.

Reminiscing about the beginnings, Mr. Prabhu said, “When the mess was started 65 years ago, it was a place which served meals for 50 people. My grandfather used to procure vegetables from the market and serve customers personally. People used to come here for our potato podimas, beans usili, avial, and lemon and pineapple rasam.”

As people who came after 1 p.m. missed lunch, Mr. Soundararajan did away with the meals and the present menu of variety rice and light tiffin was introduced in 1989.

“My father concentrated on the taste but I want to combine it with health as well,” says Prabhu.

Now, Prabhu and his wife, Prema, have introduced a variety of dishes such as murungakeerai adai avial, modakathan pickle,nellaikkai podi and pavakkai podi. Other new launches include the kalyana gothsu, a variety of vadais — cabbage, parappu,vazhapu, keerai (available between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.) — pineapple pudding, and kasi and wheat halwas.

A major attraction in one corner of the 1500-sq. ft. hall is a counter which sells milagai podi, paruppu podi, karuveppilai podi, vazhapoo pickle and pudhina podi. Many of them are made of herbs which help reduce BP, sugar, purify blood and soothe the nerves, Prabhu says.

He maintains that their recipe for success lies in the painstakingly written recipes that his mother had inherited from his grandmother. His wife has them now.

Lalithasai The Hindu 8 Aug 2014

Ratna Cafe : The secrets of sambar and 66 years of tradition

Ratna Cafe employs separate cooks for different dishes. Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

Ratna Café in Triplicane is a unique restaurant - patrons come mainly for the side dish, sambar than for the main dish – idli. From the time it was started in 1948, its trump card has been its sambhar-soaked idli.

Dates in History

1948

Ratna Cafe was established in Triplicane

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2002 

Rajendra Gupta bought the hotel from his uncle, Triloknath Gupta

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Stand Out Dishes :

Idli, vada, dosa

Did you know !

This south Indian restaurant was founded by Triloknath Gupta, a native of Uttar Pradesh.

Rajendra Gupta, proprietor of the restaurant, proudly mentions that the hotel has been able to maintain the taste of various dishes because of the secret recipes handed down the years by the founder Triloknath Gupta.

Being a native of Uttar Pradesh did not stop Triloknath Gupta from starting a chain of south Indian restaurants of which Ratna Café is the sole survivor.

 Rajendra Gupta points out that even this famous restaurant would have faded away when Triloknath Gupta, who was suffering from serious health problems, decided to close the hotel. “In 2002, when my uncle proposed to sell the restaurant, I decided to purchase it,” says Mr. Rajendra Gupta who was running the Picnic Hotel near Ripon Building.

The secret behind the restaurant is not only the recipe, but also having separate cooks for different dishes. 

While always eager to talk about the idli-sambhar combo, Mr. Rajendra Gupta says it is wrong to leave out the other dishes like parotta, dosas and the filter coffee, which are also much in demand.

After the takeover, Mr. Rajendra Gupta went about modernising the wood-fire kitchen while retaining the taste of the traditional dishes. 

He says: “At first, there was resistance from the cooks who claimed they would not be able to get the same taste, but the transformation to smoke-free and hygienic kitchen helped us get positive reviews from customers.”

The Hindu   R Sri Kanth 9 Aug 2014 

Udupi hotels, an ode to way of life

The Mathsya hotel waswas once Udipi Home

Long before the invasion of international cuisine and even north Indian food, Madras was home to a network of hotels that served pure vegetarian fare rooted in the Udupi region of Karnataka. Though there were several hotels under different names that had cooks from the region preparing the fare, the tag line ‘Udupi Hotel’ was a benchmark for quality.

One of the unique features of these hotels was that almost all of them employed natives of Udupi as head cooks and had a very strict regimen about their kitchens. The food was tasty and affordable.

P.J. Chandrasekar, proprietor of Murudi’s Lunch Home, one of the last remaining Udupi restaurants in Chindatripet, said his father P. Janarthana Rao ensured that the cooking was similar to the tradition followed in Hindu temples. The menu was limited and even the food was served at specific times.

Udupi hotels thrived across the city, even till the 1980s, with old Madras localities such Egmore, Chintradripet, Purasawalkam, Ayanavaram, Villivakkam, Mount Road, Triplicane and Royapuram boasting of many such outlets. They gradually shut up shop unable to compete with swanky restaurant chains such as Saravana Bhavan and Adyar Ananda Bhavan.

Dates in History

Before 1947

Mathsya earlier known as Udipi Home, was established

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1950s 

Udupi hotels started becoming popular across the city

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1980s

Many Udupi hotels started downing shutters in the city

Standout Dishes

Idli, vada, dosa

Several factors like the younger generation not willing to take over the mantle of the business, paucity of cooks and change in the food preferences of residents led to the once thriving family-run hotels closing down. Others were sold off.

Mr. Chandrasekar recalls at least four hotels run by his family in Chintadripet alone.

“This hotel was started in 1954 by my father and is the last of the Udupi hotels here. The three establishments run by my cousins have all shut down.”

Another Udupi hotel that stands tall amidst the decline is Mathsya that was started before Independence and is still going strong. The restaurant, located near Egmore Railway Station, went by the names Udipi Krishna Bhavan and Udipi Home when the city was still Madras.

Ram Bhat, a partner of the family-run Mathsya, finds people’s preference for north Indian dishes to be the reason for several Udupi restaurants, where only south Indian dishes were served, closing. 

While he did have to include north Indian dishes in the menu, he is proud of the fact that the restaurant is one of the few to have a separate Udupi fare.

The Hindu   R Sri Kanth 9 Aug 2014