Chennai Cafe ~ Frisco, Texas

Mr. Music is roaming around the northern sections of the massive Dallas metro area. What does he have for us today?

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Mr. Grizzly met me today for an Indian lunch feast! He and I are good friends and dine together often as we have similar tastes. He's from Bangladesh, so I like his perspective on food and other things too. I've been going to Chennai Cafe for over 10 years. I can't believe I've never written about it. When I first started going, we'd go after happy hour for some South Indian items; specifically the 4 ft long masala dosa! The food was good, not great but not many South Indian restaurants were open later in the evening during the week near Plano.

 
The good news is the restaurant has increasingly gotten better over the years. Today was no exception! They added a buffet a few years back and have become more of an Indo-Chinese fusion spot that does some traditional South items well. The buffet is massive and is offered for lunch and dinner, though you can order from the menu as well. The offerings on the buffet change from day to day, which is cool but sometimes a drag if you are craving something.

First, they have a grill area where they make several types of dosa to order; today they offered just 3 and they also made fresh appam as well. We both got the masala dosa. This is a very thin crepe made from fermented batter of lentels and rice. Don't worry, you can't taste the fermentation most of the time and only then it can be slightly tart. It's amazing how thin they are and only cooked on 1 side, which is brown and crispy. The other side is moist like the inside of a pancake. It is filled with a scoop of aloo masala (seasoned potatoes using turmeric, mustard seed, green chilies, onion, ginger, curry leaves and a few other tasty spices.) I got some tamarind chutney and cilantro/mint chutney from the chutney table to dip it in. It was delish! As Mr. Grizzly said, not mind blowing but very good. He doesn't use any chutney with his dosa.

 
I toyed with getting appam (aka hoppers) as it is not that common in restaurants and honestly I thought it was only a Sri Lankan item, only recently did I find out they make them in Kerala and Tamil. The batter is very similar to a dosa but they add coconut milk in the batter. The outer portion is thin like a dosa, but the middle has a thicker ball of batter making it look somewhat like a fried egg. If I had 2 stomachs, I certainly would have had one.

I had idli and vada with some sambar and coconut chutney to complete my South Indian craving! I like my idli super tart and most times they deliver at Chennai Cafe, but today the idli lacked the tartness I crave. It was still good though. Idli is a fluffy (but dense at the same time), steamed biscuit made from a fermented batter that is similar to dosa batter, but is much thicker.

The vada was very light and fluffy, which many probably love, but I like mine a bit denser - still tasty here. It is another South Indian breakfast treat sorta like a savory donut. It's made from a lentil based batter seasoned with black pepper, chopped green chilies, cumin seeds and other yummies then deep fried. It can be plopped into a bowl of rasam (tamarind broth seasoned to the hilt) or sambar (thick lentil soup loaded with veggies like carrot chunks, drum sticks (the pod from the now famous moringa tree and similar in taste to a more fibrous yet milder asparagus) and pieces of onion also seasoned to the max (mustard seed, chilies, curry leaves, coriander seeds). It was not the best I've had, but still very good with decent heat.

 
The coconut chutney is very thick and laden with dried red chilies, some chopped green chile, and mustard seed. Just how I love it. Well, I'd be glad to have more heat, but it still had some.
Next, I attached the khichdi and pongal; these are Mr. Grizzly's weaknesses here at Chennai Cafe and he piled up. I do love them too, but they are super dense and filling. I'm not exactly sure what makes them different. They are both made from a base of rice, moong dal and ghee. So they are similar in consistency, but are totally different at the same time. They both share some ingredients but I guess that is where they can vary, which ingredients are used. They are both a thick, dense porridge-like dish but nutty due to the urad dal and cashews and loaded with things like chilies, mustard & cumin seeds, ginger, chilies and more. They are often used for cleanses in Ayurveda. Both were divine per Mr. Grizzly and myself.

 
We both had tindora (small, green squash about 3 inches long and a little bitter. sliced like puckle chips, and stir fried with lots of spices), Manchurian baby corn (1 inch pieces of baby corn battered and fried then stir fried with onion, ginger and other goodies) and dal makahani (a thick, buttery dish sorta like a creamy vegetarian chili made with black lentils and kidney beans (often pretty mellow, but surprisingly spicy today... loved it). All 3 were faves today for me, especially the tindora!

 
We both tried the chicken biryani and veg biryani. Biryani is a rice dish that is so complex with seasoning with green cardamom, black, smokey cardamom, star anise, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, and many other flavors. We both prefer mutton, but any biryani is better than none. Actually he said he was embarrassed to admit he had the veg. His friends and family would not approve! lol, but interestingly we both though it was more flavorful than the chicken. Nothing compares to Al Markaz (mutton dum biryani which is strategically layered and meat tenderized in spice laden yogurt), but this is a different style of biryani and is pretty darn good.

He had goat curry which I passed on today. It's usually a fave but I wanted to try other stuff I hadn't had before. He said it was good but not the usual. The pieces of meat was diced up and there were no bones. That might seem good, but in this dish, it is not! Big bones with lots of marrow are needed to intensify the flavor. Plus slurping out the marrow from a straw-like bone is a treat!

We agreed, the star of the show today was probably the fish curry! The fish were big, cubed pieces and sooo tender and flavorful without a hint of fishiness. The dark brown curry was amazing and a little unusual. I can't even put my finger on it. Mr. Grizzly thought It seemed to have a mix of Indian seasoning with some Chinese spices too. In either case, the curry was heavenly on a bit of white basmati!

 
We tried a batter fried chicken stirfry that was Indo-Chinese and reminded me of a dish from the Bombay Chinese food that was all the rage in India in the 80s (I've been told) and hit DFW in the 90s (which I had!). It was quite good today.

 
I had some cuddy (curd) rice which is a palate cleanser and digestion aid. It's basically basmati rice soaked in thick, sour yogurt with sauteed curry leaves, black gram, cumin seeds and mustard seeds (aka temper).

 
There were SO many things we didn't get to. Rasam, paneer curry, butter chicken, tandoori chicken, tomato chutney and much more. They had 4 sweet dishes including sweet sabudana (like kheer using tapioca pearls instead of rice), galub jamun (fried balls of dough like a dense donut hole) soaked in syrup made with rose water and a couple types of halwa.

 
I love this place! It's a couple dollars more than other Indian buffets, but worth the price.

- Mr. Music review