Restaurant Review: Anjappar, New York

Chilli Onion Uthappam

One of the best things about going to NY is the chance to catch up with friends while I'm there. Sadly the number of people I know the city has dwindled in the last few years, but good friends Rohit and Priyanka (whose wedding I went to in India back in 2010) still live there and we arranged to meet for dinner on the Thursday night.

Rohit chose the restaurant of Anjappar located in 'little India' at the bottom of Lexington Park. It was a 'fresh' minus fourteen degrees celsius as I walked down Lexington avenue from the office. I had to pop into the hotel for an extra jumper on my way as I wasn't prepared for it to be sold cold!

Kulipaniyaram

Anjappar specialises in food from Chennai and is one of Rohit and Priyanka's favourites so I let them order from the menu.

We started with a dish of Kulipaniyaram, small fried idli served with coconut and a coriander chutney. The kulipaniyaram themselves don't carry much flavour and I found that the chutneys didn't carry as much punch as I hoped for.

Masala Dosai

After the kulipaniyaram our three main courses arrived to share a chilli onion uthappam, masala dosai and vegetable kothu parotta.

The chilli in the uthappam had quite a kick which I felt justified in picking out after I saw Rohit doing the same. The potato filling in the dosai was fantastic, but there wasn't enough of it for me, being concentrated in the centre of the triangle.

 

Vegetable Kothu Parotta

The kothu parotta was the only dish of the night I haven't had before, a popular street side snack from the state of Tamil Nadu. It's a dish chopped parotta (a type of bread) which was served a with curry sauce on the side.

To my uneducated palate, I found the food similar to that served at Saravanna Bhavan which I tried last year, and whose NY branch was just round the corner. I didn't think the food lived up to the heights of Saravana Bhavan or Dishoom, both of which I've enjoyed in London, mainly because the accompanying chutneys and sambals weren't as good.