"Aloo ka Paratha in Chennai"..

My friend called yesterday night and asked whether she can drop by to have breakfast with me as she had to go to some church in Chetpet with her roomie. Well, we planned to eat a Punjabi breakfast. Nungambakkam is supposed to be one of the most cosmopolitan area of Chennai and with all the famous eating joints located within a radius of 2 kilometers, it sort of try to live upto that reputation. There is Pizza Hut, Pizza Corner, Cafe Coffee day, Barista, Mocha, New Yorker and many others to list including Dhaba Express. Some 20 restaurants are located within 2 kms and I guess that most of their menus have listed "Aloo Paratha". So i was confident that we can easily get Aloo Paratha and would try to revive our taste buds for Punjabi food.

Well, the search started at 9 in the morning. WE went to Raj Bhavan and learnt that they serve parathas only after 1 PM, Sangeetha offered paratha but of different varieties, Most of the restaurants open after 11 so it was like we were walking to each restaurant, asking the first question and then walking out. It continued till 10:30 and we reached Dhaba Express only to find it closed. Finally we returned to Sangeetha and settled for a quick Cheese Sandwich and a cup of coffee. We finally tried one Sambhar Vada and found it really satisfying.

Well, I remembered my CAT preparation days, when I use to leave my hostel at like 5:30 in the morning to travel to Chandigarh which was about 100 Kms from my college. North India is famous for its bitchy cold. The plains of Punjab are famous for enveloping fog which refuses to go before spending three days on the land. Well, even during those months of cold also I use to find a lot of eating joints in Patiala and even in this small town Sangrur (which is closer to my Institute) which serves you hot "Aloo Da paratha" with curd and tea from 7 in the morning. I use to walk in one of my favorite restaurants at 7 as the first customer and in a matter of 15 minutes I use to see all the seats occupied for morning breakfast. I am still wondering that typical south Indian dishes like Idli, Dosa and Vada was also available at 7 in the morning. That was something amazing.

I am not trying to draw any comparison. The early morning crowd in "Sangeetha" was enough to explain that the eating out habbit of North Indians are almost same as that of South Indians who go for heavy and rich breakfast. The only thing is that may be there are not too many takers for the North Indian breakfast here and poor people like me have no option other than to convince our Punjabi friends to eat a Sandwich or to try Sambhar Vada... ANyways, it was fun to go out and hunt for Aloo Ka paratha. We were really looking like two fool out there at the wrong place. But then these small things are what I am going to remember about Chennai... Slowly developing a strong liking for this place..