Southern Aromas, Residency Towers

Very few people know that Southern Aromas exists! For most people I know, Residency Towers = Bikes n Barrels or Main Street's extensive buffet. Last week, when we were taking one of our associates for lunch to Main Street, he spotted Southern Aromas and being from Delhi, he wanted to try South Indian food! Two of them had a South Indian Thali and it was nothing to write home about! But I am not a big fan of Thali, so I just had starters there and they were great! As I was planning to write a short post, last Tuesday a bunch of us from CFG were asked to experience dinner at Southern Aromas!

It turned out to be a superb night! The drink was very average and almost nothing South Indian about it. I am not sure if they have more South Indian kind of drinks - a modified Jigirdhanda or Coconut water with lime or something like that. But almost everything after that was a winner. We were served a coriander vada, not the traditional round shaped ones, but like a piece of cake! I sort of liked it, but it paled in comparison to the malli chicken - a superb dish, with the right amount of flavour from the coriander hitting you without overpowering the dish! The next dish  - Tiger Prawns Veppudu, yeah, Andhra Style, was a killer dish! I am already a sucker for prawns, but these prawns were flavoured and cooked to perfection. It is so easy to overcook prawns, but here, it was perfectly done. The lamb chukka was alright! I am not a big fan of these mini idly fried type things, so I did not really like it, it was certainly not bad, but with the malli chicken and veppudu prawns, I was not going to have more idly!!!!

Main courses - We were served dosas, appams, idiyappams (string hoppers) and parathas. The kothu parota was nice and flavourful, while the poondu curry (garlic gravy) went perfectly well with the dosa. There was a dhal that I did not taste and chicken curry which went very well with the dosa, but even more so with the appams. My only gripe with the appams were that they were not the crisp edged soft centred variety, but a generally soft all over types! The crisp edge is how I like my appams, but tastewise - no complaints. There was an Ambur biriyani, which tasted nothing like the biriyani I have had in Ambur, but it tasted great. I wonder why restaurants have this fancy to name any good dish as biriyani! But I think they also called it Ambur Chicken Rice, not sure!

We were too stuffed to try a plethora of desserts, but the only one we had - the payasam was brilliant!!!!


Personally, the experience would be a 4/5 for South Indian food and the prices are typically four star. A meal for two should set you back by about Rs 2000!

What I would order:

Veppudu Tiger Prawns
Malli Chicken
Dosa with Poondu Curry

Southern Aromas is the South Indian restaurant at Residency Towers - on North Boag Road, T. Nagar.

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