Pattukottai Kamatchi Mess

Happened to roam around Pondy Bazaar with a friend on a Saturday. He wants to eat some spicy traditional meal on the sunny day. Walked over to the newly opened "Pattukottai Kamatchi Mess" located at Singara velan street adjacent to Big bazaar.

Specialty of this eatery is the variety of gravies (called kolambu or thokku in Tamil) served along with the regular meal. First of this kind in Chennai food scene. Luckily we got seated immediately after entering the restaurant. Opted for a fish meal(300₹) for both of us.A big plantain leaf was placed on the table and few dishes like brinjal poriyal, snake gourd koottu, few peeled shallots and something like a pickle. Surprised to hear that it was not a pickle, but dried anchovies thokku. Also served a half litter water bottle which is included with every meal.

Karandi omlette (60₹) and a kari omlette (150₹) were ordered for sides. Both of them were made of shaloots...pretty hot and yummy ones. Kari omlette was pretty big, made of eggs and chicken meat along with some spices. Karandi omlette was 2 pieces in a plate, had to share among we two.

Initially my friend was disappointed to see only few spoons of rice was served and then a spoonful of chicken thokku. And then he turned at me and gave a "What the heck is this?" kind of look. Told him to wait and watch till the end. We finished the first round very quickly.

And then things have lined up for us. Served continuously with rice along with other gravy varieties like country chicken gravy, mutton gravy, prawn thokku, crab thokku, quail thokku, bone gravy, fish gravy. At one point, my friend started literally begging the waiter to not serve anything further. But still they served thick curd on a mud pot and a cup full of wheat rava payasam. Now my friend starts worrying on how he is going to finish all of this.

All these things went into our guts along with a big crispy king fish fry which comes along with the fish meal. One can opt for mutton chops meal, crab fry meal,...Good part is we also got few chucks of crab, nattu koli,etc.. along with the gravy. Waiters were happily serving rice and gravy rigorously with a big smile. That guy explained about the gravy before putting it on the leaf. Service is exceptionally great here. Hope they maintain the same over years.

I thought of finishing the meal with rasam, but had to drink the curd with no rice. At the end, had gulped few shots of payasam, but could not finish it. It was a hearty meal if you don't mind the large amount of stuff that goes into the guts.

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