Muniyandi Vilas & Vaniyambadi Biriyani, Mandaveli

While visiting a proper restaurant is good, one cannot afford to go often to such places and it's actually fun and easy on the pocket to try out different local places. Two such places I have frequented over the years for decent non veg food in Mandaveli are Muniyandi vilas and vaniyambadi biriyani. Both these are budget, hole in the wall joints but they provide good food for the price and definitely have a standard and consistency. Both are located only a few metres away from each other after you cross the Mandaveli bus terminus on Venkatakrishna road.

Madurai Sri Muniyandi vilas:

This place is the typical Madurai kind of joint and has a blue colored doorway. The seating is below street level and you get the feeling you are entering a hobbit household when you enter. :D  I've never eaten from here but the seating and tables are just plain wooden benches. You will find a parotta master on the outside beside the entrance briskly churning up all kinds of dishes and constantly turning over parottas to a waiter who takes them to eaters inside.

When requested for a menu, they would bring you a tray full of all the non veg items that's on the menu for your choosing! This is something not seen often in the city I would imagine. All food is served on the banana leaf and even packed in a wrapping of banana leaf and newspapers. This seems to keep the food tasty as well.

I had a few parottas and a chicken curry. The chicken costed only 60 rupees and has 6 to 7 pieces. It is semi gravy type, the chicken is soft and there's more curry leaves in it. The masala is standard and not too spicy. It tastes decent for the price and goes well with parotta. They give a salna kind which is also good. It's better than other salnas that we get in the area at least. I just get 2 parottas to sample it since I am also getting a biriyani from Vaniyambadi next door. The other non veg items they have are mutton sukka, nethili fry, botti masala [innards of the goat!], mutton blood curry! and of course the egg dishes that are made immediately. All these cost less than hundred bucks. Have been eating here for a few years every few months and the food is mostly good and fresh for a road side place. Most of the staff of MTC terminus eat here and in vaniyambadi. They open from evenings till 11 in the night but some of the non veg dishes run out by then.

Vaniyambadi Biriyani:

This place has been operating for many years now and makes some good biriyani on a budget again. They have only chicken/egg biriyani and costs 80 bucks for a half plate. Me and friends have frequented here during college days often when we see the biriyani pot just arriving we can't resist so used to have a quarter plate here. The guy who serves biriyani also hits the metal pot annoyingly loudly. I feel this is a good marketing tactic. "See! Im serving hot biriyani to eager buyers come and get some!"

But nowadays the demand and size of the biriyani pot has gone down with many biriyani joints opening up nearby but these guys still provide good biriyani consistently. In the many times I've bought takeaway from here, the rice was never dry or old like you get sometimes even in famous restos sometimes. Few times the biriyani has been lukewarm but that is okay. When it is just made, it is quite delicious it has a distinct taste [vaniyambadi style?] and pieces are quite soft. I am not sure if every biriyani lover will like this taste though. They also give a small packet of brinjal side and onion raitha which usually has very less curd in it.