Dinesh and Bawa

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Monday, April 7, 2008

A lunch in Chennai

Yesterday we went for lunch to a restaurant called Sanjeevanam... blazing mid day sun notwithstanding...

They dont take reservations, its only on a first come first served basis... we went in at about 12 noon, had had no breakfast, so was very hungry :), and there were tables available... we were 5 and had our meal at a table designed to seat 4, but that was alright...

Its a complete health food place, and the meal is quite elaborate... There are 26 items in all, and they are all to be eaten in a specific order only... and no water is served between the meal (which is good i dont have any either)

First Raw banana thinly sliced (3-4 slices) with just a hint of dessicated coconut
then 5 petit glasses, just 3 gulps big, of date milk, veggie soup, rice bran water, lassi and one more which i forgot... quite nice
The they put the banana leaf and serve 4 raw veggies, the raw mango salad was delicious... then you get four semi cooked vegetables, i loved the raw papaya and the petha sabjis and finally you get 4 fully cooked veggies, there was something to do with palak and amla which was quite delicious...
Then you are served the rice (unpolished v good for health red rice) with a paste of cooked moong dal, finally a choice of red and normal white rice with rasam and dahi kadhi (which has an unpronounceable malyalam/tamil name and was really tasty)
next buttermilk (v yummy) and payasam (made with jaggery)
Then a glass of hot jeera water appears when you have finished your meal to wash it down (had 5 sips)
Finally a spoonful of honey is poured into your hand and you slurp it signifying the end of the meal!!

All the food is cooked in bronze, copper or earthen ware, the kitchen was clean, the service a little slow but quite friendly... when extra portions were asked for they were given quite stingily :)

It was very nice food, very different... some of the sabjis were not hot (maybe they were not supposed to be, but i would have preferred them so)... the rasam was cold which was quite unforgivable...

Would i recommend this place?... yes definitely quite an experience, with mostly very tasty and really nutritious food... felt very light after such a long drawn out meal, though later in the evening i had almost no appetite for dinner... the ambiance could have been much better... thankfully there was no music, and you can properly focus on the food...

When we left there were quite a few people waiting in queue, so if you are planning to go, go a bit early, then you dont need to wait in the heat(waiting area is not air conditioned)... am pretty sure i would have left if i would have had to wait...

Would i go there again? Maybe once in every two trip to Chennai...

Bon Apetit!


PS Followed the lunch with juice in the fruit shop at greams road (thats the name, they have branches at a lot of place but still call it at greams road, we went to the fruit shop at greams road in spencer plaza, i am pretty sure it is something to do with the heat in chennai:))... really really yummy juices and milkshakes served here... if you goto chennai, please do go here and taste as many as you possibly can! :)
i had a flosberry flop (pineapple, lemon and mint), kavi had a pink panther (lemon, ginger and some other stuff to make it pink), Seema had a milkshake Ban the Banana (hint of banana with strawberry and milk and something else... they dont tell you its a secret), and we took home a sheik shake for dinesh (dates whirrled in with ice cold milk)...
many more really exotic juices and shakes to experiment with... my only complaint about this place is that they are not uniformly good... a juice on one visit will taste divine, on another terrible... but its far more likely to taste great than bad, so do go for it and if you have not too good an experience, give them one more chance :)
The other complaint: terrible loud music :)  

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6 comments:

atmarati avirodhena said...

dear bau ..i check your blog before i even check my mail every morning .. its fantastic ..I especially love your guru updates and the stuff about food :)
guruji's coming to singapore next tuesday :) super excited :)
love
tanu

Anupam Gupta said...

OH BAAUU.....i cant WAIT to EAt now...u give soem description bau....i swear i felt like i was sitting there lookign at ur plate and not able to even reach out and touch the food...cud almost smell it...MARVELLOUS bau...absolutely marvellous

Nathan SP (நாதன்) said...

Dear Bawa,

Wow...glad that you came here for DSN....and during the course of DSN...I was wondering..where you pple sneak out in between and come back...

well I've got all the answers here..

Sanjeevanam and Fruit shop on Greams road...hmm hmmm....there are only two things you seem to be doing apart from AOL....one is books n lot of them...other is FOOD...hehe...apologies if I had missed any of your other activities coz I dont know any of your other activities yet...

and yeah..Sanjeevanam is a great place. I love it a lot coz it gives wholesome food..they have three branches in Chennai...with Adayar (where you went) being the smallest..I have had at all the three..and may be you should try Nungambakkam branch next time :-)

Fruit shop on Greams rood...is spread in more than 8 or 9 places in chennai...and oh yeah..it is good and I like it...also for the quality of juice they offer..the cost aint much

In my enthusiasm to reply in ur blog..I wrote really big...almost like another blog

JGD.

Anonymous said...

jaigurudev bau...love mona

Vijay said...

That place has real nutritious food like u say. I (could say we -with a sense of belongingness for everybody :-)) thoroughly enjoyed the DSN. Can't wait for Utsav to happen in June n hv Bau n Dinesh back here. Am confident we'll rock Chennai with Utsav.

Anonymous said...

Its almost lunch hour at office...and I am hungrieee! => yur post tingled my hunger enormously..the description is very very visual

guess why ? cos the lunch at office is just as tasty :-) I take 3 servings...dont knw where d food disappears after eating...cos I'll be hungry again :-)

JGD

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