Mister Madras

The primitive man wandered through forests in search of food to satiate his cravings and I suppose it’s the same primal instinct that makes the modern man wander through concrete forests searching for delicious quick bites in order to satisfy his hankering. This is the essence of a food walk and as far as Chennai is concerned, Sowcarpet is the Mecca for food walks. Sowcarpet is the most tried and tested place for these walks and thanks to a number of foodies who are seniors and predecessors in this topic, we were able to plan our trip perfectly and we executed it flawlessly.   The options of commuting: 1. Parking is a huge issue during weekdays but not a problem on a Sunday morning in the Sowcarpet area. You can drive your cars through those narrow streets and you would be able to find a sidestreet where you could park. Alternatively you could park near the Flower Bazaar police station and walk down too. Just be aware of the one way roads in the area. Mint Street is one way s...

  Occasion:     Kashmiri Food Festival Location:    Curry Town, The Savera Hotel, Mylapore Duration:    19th to 28th February, 2016 Kashmiri cuisine has been something that has always intrigued me thanks to it’s interesting history and it’s strong affiliation towards meat, especially mutton. Though I haven’t been up north to Kashmir my father has and one thing he always raved about was their food and their excellent quality of meat. While I was wondering when I was going to get my hands on some of this, I was invited to Curry Town at The Savera Hotel for a Kashmiri Food Festival and it was obviously an offer I couldn’t resist. The Kashmiri Food Festival is designed by Chef Rehman Mujeebur . He has hand-picked the dishes for this menu and has come down all the way to Chennai for this festival. He’s an expert in Awadhi, Rampuri, Typical Mughlai, Hyderabadi, Kashmiri, North West Frontier, Persian & Turkish Cuisines and so if there was someone who w...

  After the heavily underrated Pannaiyarum Padminium, director Arun Kumar is back with his second flick. Sethupathi, a name that’s synonymous to the cops to any Tamil cinema fan, is the name of this film where he joins hands once again with Vijay Sethupathi. While the former was a classy breezy flick, this one is a mass entertainer that’s sure to amuse the audience. Sethupathi is the story of how a cop investigates the death of another inspector who dies due to mysterious circumstances. This unravels a back story that leads to a bigwig of the town whom the hero has to have a face off with. How he managed to do it and whether truth triumphs at the end forms the crux of Sethupathi. The cast of Sethupathi is very compact and new. Vijay Sethupathi’s lady love is played by Remya Nambeesan and she’s sharing screen space with him after his first major breakthrough with her which was Pizza. Others are comparatively new faces. Vijay Sethupathi’s mannerism, the ...

Wangs Kitchen has always been one of the most affordable yet authentic Chinese chain of restaurants in our city and though I’ve tried almost every one of them, I was certainly intrigued when I was invited for their Chinese New Year 2016 event. Only when I was thinking if there was a dish that I hadn’t ordered from Wangs menu, I was told that they have a special menu for this event. If that wasn’t surprising enough, they’ve selected dishes from different provinces to give an experience of China in just one dinner. A couple of foodie friends and I were invited and given below is my take on this event. The Chinese New Year 2016 event was hosted at Wangs Kitchen’s Chetpet branch. This is the branch in Harrington road, opposite to Costa Coffee and Ox & Tomato. Just like most of it’s other properties, this Wangs shares it’s building space with French Loaf. This actually makes the entrance to Wangs a bit awkward as one would have to pass through Fr...

The barbecue concept isn’t something new to our city. As a matter of fact, it’s something that almost every one of us have given a shot and has got a certain idea on how it works. But that hasn’t stopped an array of new bbq joints from opening recently. Ironically, the numbers are now higher than ever. Surprisingly, Velachery didn’t have a proper bbq joint and that gap has been filled with Coal Barbecues. My friends and I were lucky enough to be invited for a bloggers meet and given below is my take on Coal Barbecues, Velachery. Coal Barbecues is located in the ever busy 100 Feet Road. A large illuminated signboard makes this place hard to miss. Though I don’t remember seeing a valet parking service, there is enough space to park a couple of cars. The building is actually a huge complex and Coal Barbecues is located on the second floor. But there is a reception counter at the ground floor itself where we get to check if tables are available and there is als...

Things can’t get better than this. Bay View in Vivanta is a slice of Venice in the shores of Mahabs. Instead of losing myself to the nature or establishing eye contact to the girl of my dreams, I was stuck here with a couple of friends out of which almost everyone wanted to drink and not eat. So after sending the pack to Anchor Bar, two of my friends and I decided to get done with our dinner. That’s how we reached Bay View and given below is my take based on our experience. Bay View is located in Vivanta by Taj Fisherman’s Cove. Because of the ECR road extension, the huge boarding that runs over the main road has been taken down which made it quite hard to spot Fisherman’s Cove. Thanks to a quick search in Google maps, we were able to pin point the location correctly. As it’s a five star hotel, they’ve got the parking sorted out. I personally love Fisherman’s Cove for it’s spacious and serene ambience. Not many know that it’s actuall...

Almost a decade in Tamil cinema as a director but Vetrimaaran had only given two films, Polladhavan and Aadukalam. Apart from the fact that both were critically acclaimed, they also raked in some serious box office collections. This time he’s back to prove that his winning streak is no luck but pure talent with his latest flick, Visaranai. Though this film was ready to see the day light quite a while back, thanks to film festivals and awards, we got to see it a bit late. Visaranai is the story of how four Tamil speaking labourers in Andhra get framed for a crime that they didn’t commit just to close a case and how they managed to escape from it only to land in a bigger mess back home in Tamilnadu. There is humour, a small love track and major political conspiracies along with corruption and brutality mixed together to give a film which sounds commercial but still doesn’t fall under that category. First half shows the horror of these four wrongly accused being tortured ...