if you love hot and spicy food, anjappar chettinad is the place to go. i visited the restaurant a couple of days back with friends and all of us loved it. although we had to wait for almost half an hour before we got a table, the food made up for it. but theservicewas a little disappointing. reminded me of the typical udupi restaurants back in india, where the servers are always in such great hurry and not too attentive.
we started with a masala dosa and the vegetable kothu parottas. the dosa was crisp and the filling was just perfect. the different chutneys and sambhar that it was served with were also pretty good. the kothu parotta was not what we expected (since none of us had tried chettinad food in the past) but delicious nevertheless. it is supposed to be a very famous street dish in south india. it's basically minced parottas cooked with veggies & spices and i enjoyed every spoon of it.
next came in the main course. the chettinad vegetable kurma was similar to the normal veg. korma but the chettinad masala is what made the difference and added that extra flavor. although it wasn't as spicy as i expected it to be. but what was spicy, was their poondu kuzhambu. its cloves of garlic cooked in an amazing curry made up of some really complex flavors. the rotis were soft and fresh too.
the veg. biryani was not the usual biryani either, i guess they used some unique spices of chettinadu to prepare this one. and it went very well with the raita served on the side.
we wrapped up our meal with a round of filter coffee and it was just the perfect end to our meal. the coffee was brilliant and one of the best i've had in the bay area.
i'm glad i visited and would definitely go back to satiate my spicy food cravings.