Hotel Junior Kuppanna Chennai (Madras)

I have been visiting Junior Kuppanna (ECR branch) ever since it opened at the end of January this year. I thought it is time for me to share my thoughts. Junior Kuppanna is located at a very accessible place - on the main ECR in Neelankarai, next to Cream Stone. The cuisine is Tamil Erode style and Junior Kuppanna brings authentic Tamil non-vegetarian food with a fine dining experience. Probably 60-70% of the menu is non-vegetarian and the rest is vegetarian. The food is served like a traditional Tamil feast - on a banana leaf. Now on the food itself. I have the vegetarian meals here regularly. The regular vegetarian lunch comprises sambar, tamarind kozhambu, rasam, two vegetable dishes, two types of dhals, curd and sweet and appalam. All these are unlimited. The sambar has a lot of dhal and it is delicious. It is way better than the sambar offered at other restaurants by a mile - it is my favourite sambar. All the other dishes in the lunch are excellent - I look forward to the cabbage poriyal, the potato poriyal and the avial. The thing I love about all the items in lunch is that the spice level is perfect - it is neither too spicy, nor is it bland. In many restaurants, they just overdo the spices that the taste of the chillies overpowers the taste of the vegetables and the sambar. But the spice level is so perfect here that they enhance the taste. I normally have lunch with an omelette, which is wonderfully made, with onion, chillies, and tomato. There are other kinds of egg preparations in the menu, if you like other preparations more. In the non-vegetarian lunch, we get non-vegetarian gravy (chicken / mutton) and a full-boiled egg. I haven't tried that yet, but it is quite popular among customers. Out of the other items in the menu I have tried, I love the two kinds of dosa - wheat dosa and Erode dosa. The Erode dosa looks like an Oothappam, but is light and fluffy. I normally pair them with sambar (am so addicted to the delicious sambar), coconut chutney and tomato thokku. The tomato thokku is divine and amazing and wonderfully delicious. I also love the Kothu parotta - it is delicious and taste wonderfully well with the onion raitha. You can try it with gravy too, if you like. The regular parotta or the veechu parotta with chukka tastes wonderful. There is mushroom chukka and mutton chukka, which is quite popular. The chicken and mutton biriyanis are also quite popular. There are also Chinese style items in the menu, like Gobi Manchurian, Gobi 65, Chicken 65 etc. I haven't tried the fish dishes yet, but I have heard that the Vanjiram fish tawa fry is amazing. The dessert menu has sweets - the carrot halwa is amazing - and icecreams and milkshakes. The icecreams and milkshakes are wonderful and delicious and the black currant icecream is divine. The Falooda is wonderful too. There is also coffee and tea, if you prefer a hot beverage after a meal, and buttermilk if you want to quench your thirst. The staff is very friendly and warm and the customer service is wonderful. Vignesh who is part of the managerial team is one of the finest managers I have met, and other members of his team like Sahaya Mary, Kumaran, Balamurugan, Gunasekaran, Chandru and others are warm and friendly and efficient with their service and make the customers happy. There is ample parking space for patrons - that is one more wonderful thing about the restaurant. The restaurant is crowded on Sunday afternoons as people from all over Chennai come here for a sumptuous Sunday lunch. If you want to try delicious Tamil regional cuisine, especially non-vegetarian cuisine, do give Junior Kuppanna a try.

Well readers, recently I have visited this Chettinad restaurant called Junior Kuppanna in ECR. For someone who has a taste for spicy and tasty food, this is the right place to eat

The restaurant is on the ECR, so easy to find. Parking is available. The staff were courteous. Only one concern was that the vegetarian and non vegetarian sections were not clearly marked. I started with Mutton Paya soup which was light and full of flavor. 
For starters we ordered Naadu  Kozi Fry, Pepper chicken fry, Prawn fry, Kaadai roast and Mutton pepper fry.  Among all the dishes, I must mention chicken pepper fry and mutton soup which were exceptional in taste. Also the team should look into how to reduce odor of the fish preparations as after first time due to strong smell of raw fish I couldn't bear it.For the main dish since we had gone there in group we could taste many varieties. The rice was good in texture and taste. So were the naans and mutton dosa. Only thing is that there was no forks or knives on the table for us to use. Every time we had to ask for it. Overall a good experience for us and would recommend a visit to taste the coastal dishes.