Where our gingelly oil comes from
A wooden chekku in a village near Pudukkottai, sesame seeds and palm jaggery: the oil behind every dish we cook.
After the temple: eating around Srirangam and the Rockfort
A day of temples in Tiruchirappalli, with notes on timings, crowds and where to rest before a late lunch.
Many of our lunch guests come straight from a temple visit, tired and hungry. If you are visiting Tiruchirappalli, here is how locals plan the day so lunch comes at the right time.
Start early at the Ranganathaswamy temple in Srirangam, ideally by 6.30 am, before the queues build. The temple complex is huge, with seven enclosing walls, and a walk through the main shrines and the outer streets takes two to three hours. Dress codes apply inside, and footwear must be left at the counters near the entrance. Weekends and Vaikunta Ekadasi in December are very crowded.
From Srirangam, cross the Kaveri to the Rockfort. The climb to the Uchi Pillaiyar temple at the top is about 400 steps cut into the rock, best done before 11 am when the stone is still cool. The view from the top takes in the river, the city and the gopurams of Srirangam. Around the base are the busy streets of the old town, with cloth and bangle shops along NSB Road.
By noon, most visitors are ready to sit down. Thillai Nagar is about fifteen minutes from the Rockfort by auto or car. Our dining room opens for lunch at 12, and on temple festival days and Sundays it fills by 1 pm, so reserve if you are a group of eight or more. A banana leaf meal and a glass of cold buttermilk after a morning on stone floors is the best way we know to end a temple day.
