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Eating your way around RS Puram
A walking route through Coimbatore’s RS Puram, from morning flowers to evening snacks, beginning at our door.
RS Puram is one of the older planned neighbourhoods of Coimbatore, laid out with wide streets and trees, and it is one of the best parts of the city to explore on foot. Here is a half-day route our staff suggest to visitors who ask.
Start early, around 7.30 am, with tiffin at our tables on DB Road; a mini tiffin is a good way to taste four things at once. Then walk towards the flower and vegetable stalls nearby, where jasmine and marigold are sold by the measure in the mornings, and the vegetables come in fresh from the farms around the city. It is a good place to see the small brinjals and country beans we use in our poriyals.
Mid-morning, walk along TV Samy Road and Cowley Brown Road, where you will find old houses with sloping tiled roofs alongside new apartments, and small shops selling cotton sarees, brass lamps and steel vessels. If you are interested in temples, an auto ride of about twenty minutes takes you to Perur, where the old Shiva temple has finely carved pillars.
Come back to RS Puram in the evening, when the streets fill up with families. Look for small stalls selling sundal, bajji and fresh sugarcane juice, especially around the park. In the season, ask for kambu koozh, a cooling pearl millet drink with buttermilk and small onions, sold from clay pots. Then come back for dinner, when the dosa tawa is busy until 10.30 pm.
