Dindigul Thalappakatti, a Biryani Specialist in Madurai x Lazy Blog.

Dindigul Thalappakatti is a place I visited on a local’s recommendation.

Entrance

The name isn’t easy to remember… A quick search showed this isn’t the only location; they even have a branch in Singapore. I guess that shows how popular the place is.

Today’s special

It’s in English, which is convenient. But since a local was going to order anyway, I just skimmed it.

Interior

It’s fairly large, with group seating in the back.

Restroom and hand-washing area

This is where you wash your hands. Since I was in India, I had to try eating with my hands the Indian way, right? Of course they have spoons and forks too, but when you’re traveling, you should go local.

Table

There are simple photos of the dishes, which makes ordering easy.

It looks rather imposing… The contents are substantial, so I’ll share the whole menu at the end.

Mutton soup

A soup packed with spices. The spice flavor in the broth is so strong that the mutton isn’t really the point. I probably wouldn’t have ordered it on my own, but since the local ordered it, I finished it anyway.

Banana leaf, I think…

They put the biryani and so on onto this and eat off it.

Mutton

A bit overcooked, but tasty.

Sauce

This seems to be for putting on the biryani.

Onion

Nice to have one of these around when eating something spicy.

Butter naan

Naan from the homeland is far tastier than I expected. Well fermented and nicely baked. They also had breads like chapati and parotta here besides naan, and it’s a bit of a shame I didn’t order them. I only ordered one naan as a trial since I didn’t know whether it would be good, but had I known it would be this delicious, I would have ordered every other kind at once…

Biryani

According to the local, there’s a legend that an army ate biryani and won a war. Apparently it gives you strength… Combat rations, maybe… But I’m not sure eating nothing but carbs like this gives you strength… I hope the warriors were okay…

This is how it’s set up for eating.

But eating with just the right hand is surprisingly awkward. Eating by hand sounds easy, but you can’t use your left hand at all, so it takes getting used to.

Looks like something fried…

I don’t think it tasted especially remarkable.

Anyway, every dish, from the biryani to the mutton, used very fresh spices. Spices this fresh probably aren’t easy to get cheaply unless you’re somewhere near the equator like South India. And since this region is so hot, such spices are easy to come by, but conversely, I suspect dishes loaded with spices are popular precisely to survive this heat. It’s the same reason Koreans eat huge amounts of garlic to withstand the heat and cold. So I got to thinking that real Indian food is only truly meaningful when you come to South India to eat it. I’m not sure food with that many spices piled in would taste as good in a country with pleasant weather… Living in South India someday, if I ever have the time, seems appealing too.

Lassi