As we pulled into Kumbakonam, I took note of the brightly lit and bustling Meenakshi Bhavan. Since we’d had such a good meal at Saravana Bhavan in Chennai, I felt warmly disposed towards any establishment with “Bhavan” in its name, although I suspected there were probably quite a few.

We ended up enjoying some things that we hadn’t run into before:

Milk paniyaram. The flavor of these reminded me of the light sweetness of corn. They were perfectly fried and delicate.

I had Sri Lankan hoppers at a food festival in L.A. last year, and this idiappam was exactly the same. I later read that traders brought the hopper from Sri Lanka to southern India - or vice versa? Apparently “hopper” is an anglicization of “appam.” You can flood it with coconut milk, which permeates the fluffy, idli-like bottom with its delicate flavor while the side crusts remain delicately crisp. It was refreshingly light after all the fried food we’d been having.

Veetu dosa, at top, was very tasty in the way of dosas, but I’m not sure what “veetu” means.

Although Meenakshi Bhavan, like Saravana Bhavan, is a chain, not all locations are equal. We ate at the one in Madurai (which is actually the home of Meenakshi Temple) and everything was disappointingly heavy and greasy.

Meenakshi Bhavan
23, Nageswaran North Street, Kumbakonam - 612 001
phone 0435 2430749