A family lunch for twelve: what it costs
Meals, extra dishes, parotta and a sweet: a realistic budget for a group of twelve at our Thillai Nagar dining room.
Purattasi month: our vegetarian Chettinad menu
When many families give up meat for the Tamil month of Purattasi, the kitchen changes too. What we cook from September to October.
Purattasi, the Tamil month from mid-September to mid-October, is sacred to Lord Venkateswara, and many families in Tiruchirappalli stop eating meat, fish and eggs for the whole month. Our dining room changes with them: vegetarian orders rise to about 70% of lunches, and the kitchen changes its plan for the four weeks.
Chettiar home cooking has always had a rich vegetarian side, and Purattasi is when we bring more of it out. Through the month, the banana leaf meal adds a second kootu and an extra kuzhambu. Our regulars wait for the vazhaipoo kola urundai, banana flower dumplings in a peppery gravy, which we make only during this month because it takes two people a full morning to clean the flowers.
Other Purattasi dishes include kaalan pepper fry, made with mushroom in the same masala we use for chicken, ennai kathirikkai in gingelly oil, a vegetable kurma with poppy seed and coconut, and kavuni arisi, the black rice sweet. The mushroom pepper fry is served at ₹220, and the vegetarian meal at ₹230.
We keep the meat menu running for guests who do not observe the month, but meat dishes are cooked in a separate section of the kitchen with their own vessels, and served on a separate counter. If you are hosting guests who observe Purattasi strictly, tell us when you reserve, and we will seat your table in the front hall, away from the meat service.
