Murugan Idli Kadai @ Besant Nagar
[size=18:7487a8d275]Murugan Idli Kadai.[/size:7487a8d275]
The well hyped traditional food chain now speading its outlets all over chennai. Their recent opening is at besant nagar beach.
You need to prepare yourself for waiting to enter into the idli kadai. You cannot straight away walk into the door and pick your table and eat those idlis. You have to wait outside for 10 to 15 minutes. Follow the queue and enter inside.
[b:7487a8d275]Warm-up:[/b:7487a8d275]
Inform the door-keeper and select your chair outside. He will call you once suitable table is cleared. If you are lucky enough, you can get in within a few minutes or wait upto 10-15 minutes.
[b:7487a8d275]Get-in:[/b:7487a8d275]
Once entered in, you will find a modern establishment and no traditional interiors. Granite tables, with designer metal chairs . The place can accomodate upto 40 members, and the other hall can accomodate upto 20 members on the other side. The interiors are air-cooled and you can see neon-lights hanging behind the glass walls. It reminds me that the setup is similar to Subway.
[b:7487a8d275]Ready Start Action:[/b:7487a8d275]
The captain will guide you to the free tables. Noticed there were metal tumblers with holes . I wondered how they will pour the water in. But soon the attender placed a plastic water cup in it and my doubt was cleared. We started with Idli. One Idli costs Rs.4.50. A pair of Idli costs Rs.9.00 plus taxes. The menu listed standard Oil dosai, Ghee dosai, Butte dosai and so on. Nothing special. A Pongal costs Rs.15.00.
They serve 4 chatnis plus one standard sambar. Thank god they didnt bill extra for chatnis. Heard from shuba that their idli podi is really good. But one spoon of idli podi costs Rs.3.50. I dont have a generous heart to pay Rs.3.50 for idli podi. So i didnt try that.
Pongal is available in two flavors. Plain “ven pongal” and Sweet “Sakkara pongal”. Dont mind if your heart misses a beat when the pongal reaches your table. Just a “karandi” of pongal with lot of ghee and few cashews served in a “thonnai” cup with the very small spoon. (business trick! 
)
[b:7487a8d275]Taste & Quality:[/b:7487a8d275]
The food is served properly and the attenders maintain cleanliness. The coconut chatni is mostly “coconut punnakku” version. Similar to hotel chatnis. I was expecting a good coconut chatni, but didnt find that. Little disappointed in that front. The tomator chatni, mint chatni and the other unknown chatni tasted good. The sambar reminded the traditional madurai flavor. Overall the taste was above average.
Idli.. well the most hyped food and speciality of this shop. The idli is similar to kushboo idli but not big. The soft and non-grainy preparation was lovely. But that doesnt justify the unbeleivable price of Rs.4.50 per piece.
I guess the higher price is specifically maintained to distinguish themselves and position them in the level of upper tier restaurants. They dont want to create a yet-another-crap impression. Clever.
[b:7487a8d275]Conclusion:[/b:7487a8d275]
If you wanna take a break and ready to pay a premium price tag for pakka south indian food, and if you are a ardent lover of idlis, you will find MIK as a good’n’ costly pick. The idlis are very normal except the fact that they are soft and good to eat. These type of idlis can be very well found in your sweet home cooked by your mother or wife.
Bachelors! Enjoy… you may find MIK’s idlis much better than the other restaurant craps.
Finally, in my personal opinion, their idlis are not “out-of-this-earth” quality as they are hyped. But their advertisment screened at sathyams (paravai muniyamma and the car chase) is something that is really “out-of-this-earth”.
Worth visiting once in a month!