Rathna cafe

A few days ago, at the office I was animatedly remiscing the wonderful aromas of freshly steamed Idlies, pongal and the golden brown crisp dosas that my hometown -Chennai is so renowned for. Add to that some freshly ground 'thenga'(coconut) chutney garnished with 'Karuvapillai' (Curry leaves)and 'perungayam' (asafoetedia), and some delicious sambhar- all enthusiastically served by a waited with the popular thick moustache, and served on the even more popular 'yelai'. There-You have the perfect south Indian breakfast washed down by the most popular of all- South India strong filter coffee (In fact, thining about it now I feel like going back...sob sob).
A fellow colleague of mine, overhearing this, came over and said to me " I lived in Chennai for a while in an area called triplicane". Triplicane is one of the oldest areas in Chennai and is quite densely populatred with temples (some more than 400 years old), messes, and really old houses. He carried on " While I was there I would have most of my meals at Rathna Cafe". Now the juices were flowing. Coz Rathna Cafe is as old and as good as it gets. You really dont have to go beyond it once you've had a flavour of it. Every morning, the entire area is woken up by the aroma of sambhar being cooked at Rathna cafe as early as 5.30 in the morning. When the doors of Rathna Cafe open at 6.30, the first of the lot to enter is usually noisy bunch of oldies. They would have just completed their morning walks at the beach (which was very nearby) and indulge in a feast of idli, vada and pongal (with an extra helping of ghee). Now Rathna cafe has a speciality. they dont serve you idlies the usual boring way i.e in a plate with chutney and sambhar together in tiny bowls-NOPE. Instead they bring hundreds of absolutely steaming hot idlies and a ton of pongal in basins from which they serve you how many ever you wish. and that too on a nice green clean banana leaf. Now comes the best part...They have a bucket of boiling hot sambhar which is poured on the idlie/pongal and then glazed with a generous dollops of ghee. The result...pure heaven.

Rishav asked me curiously, " Does Rathna Cafe still serve sambhar the way they used to?" " I nodded. He sat back on his chair with a smile.