What makes a restaurant successful? The Tanjore Tiffin Room case study

Staff Reporter

1 year ago

Madras railway curry

Mumbai’s The Tanjore Tiffin Room restaurant is no spring chicken. The original branch at Versova was opened in 2017. The second, in Bandra, in 2019.

I finally went to the Versova outlet on a weekday on April 22 and to the Bandra one on a Sunday on May 23. The restaurants were full on both occasions. Not an easy task to achieve in a city where restaurants open a dime a dozen with most unfortunately shutting down soon.

Tanjore Tiffin Room offers food from Tamil Nadu. There are hardly any Tamil restaurants in Mumbai as far as I know. There is Madras Diaries, a vegetarian restaurant in Bandra. TTR on the other hand offers goat, buff, chicken, seafood and vegetarian food.

So what lies behind the success of Tanjore Tiffin Room?

The food. The food that I tried on both occasions is brilliant. Be it the chicken cutlet among starters, that reminded me of my beloved cutlets of Calcutta. Or the crunchy, but juicy batter-coated Karaikudi prawns. The sweet potato chilli fry which makes non-vegetarians go weak in their knees. Tiny cubes of sweet potatoes, whose inherent mushy sweetness are contrasted and brought alive by yellow chilli powder and spices that it came enshrouded in. The Madurai chicken wing ghee roast which comes marinated in a distinctive and delicious marinade of green chutney. Sandal, the dried pea chaat made famous by the hawkers on Chennai’s Marina Beach, is on offer too.

Sandal

Madurai chicken wings

Karaikudi prawns

Sweet potato chilli fry

Chicken cutlet

Among the mains, the Madras mutton curry, which is coconut milk based here unlike the railway curries of the east, was delectable. The marrow bone was the icing on the gravy. While one is used to having coconut milk-based stews in Kerala and gassis from Mangalore, the onion and tomato base in the Railway curry lent a very distinctive, tongue-tingling taste to the dish.

The mutton ghee roast here consists of tender pieces of mutton in a robust spice base which reminded me of the kosha mangsho of Bengal.

Mutton ghee roast

They do a stellar and soporific chicken stew here, with leg pieces of chicken. Apparently, Kerala is not the only place where stews are popular. Incidentally, the Malabar parathas of Kerala are said to have come from Sri Lanka via Tamil Nadu.

Chicken stew (railway curry in the backgorund)

If you want your fill of vegetables, then the poriyal (chopped vegetables cooked in coconut oil with grated coconut) is your best bet. I ordered it on both occasions and finished it like a good boy.

Porial

The appams were the only weak point. They were nice and crisp in Versova, limp in Bandra

The food was traditional. Nothing was reconstructed or deconstructed. The flavours seemed on point based on my travels in south India.

The food gave joy regardless of whether you were aware of Tamil food or not.

And isn’t that what food is all about? Joy.

Podi idli

I must mention here that the service is very good. I was by myself in the Versova outlet. They gave me half portions and charged accordingly. This enabled me to try a variety of dishes.

In Bandra, we had a family table where everyone apart from me was as unfamiliar with food from the south as you can expect Parsis and Goans to be. The staff did a good job of patiently explaining the dishes. They offer a tasting of curries to help you choose the one you like.

They have a curry-tasting to help people
check out the curries before ordering

We had to wait for long to get a table even though we had reserved one and come. They gave us podi idlis on the house. They ensured that the seating for my mom-in-law was comfortable. I do rate restaurants on how they treat the elderly, people who are overwhelmed by the dining out experience and those who are not familiar with the food on offer.

TTR was on point on all counts

Gia and her Granny P. Goan and Parsi besties.

I am told that one of the promoters/ owners, Prashant Pallath, is quite hands on. This shows in the excellent overall experience.

Great food, warm service, a pleasant ambience, and owners who are hands on. Tanjore Tiffin Room has got the simple essentials of a dining out experience right and this shows in its popularity over the years. It is indeed good model for new restaurants to emulate.

To the best of my knowledge, my visits were anonymous. We paid our bills.

We are going back once again tonight. That’s how much we liked the place. I owe Sneha Senapati for recommending that I go to the Versova outlet and to Erika and Gia who told us about the Bandra outlet and hosted us there.

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