In a nutshell:
A pre-independence restaurant serving ouststanding local Madurai food, with a small dining hall, very warm staff, fast service & memorable food
Address & other details: Konar kadai
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/konarkadai?igsh=Y3NycTgycWpsMjhx
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069821689959&mibextid=uzlsIk
Meal for 2: ₹300 onwards
Cuisine type : vegetarian & non vegetarian
Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews. YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everything & give a honest account of the same to you.
YUMMRAJ rates all the food items & then gives a final overall rating, which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster
Short description- in case u r in a hurry
The trip to Madurai was organized by our travel curator Vana safaris. We have been travelling all across India on food & culture immersion tours since 2019 & have got addicted to their unique layered tours way beyond the obvious that no amount of Internet research could get us ever.
The restaurant was recommended to us by our friends from Madurai, Mukunthan & his wife Praveena, who are stalwarts on food in Madurai. Both of them have been running food walks in the city since the time almost no one else had started the concept in India
Website – https://foodiesdayout.com/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/foodiesdayout.tht?igsh=Njh3bHVzYW9wdjZz
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/FoodiesDayOut?mibextid=uzlsIk
After two sessions with this couple, we realized we were totally ignorant of the diversity of food in Madurai & also ignorant of food variety in Tamil Nadu. THANK YOU both. It was like attending a serious academic course through fun conversations.
Konar kadai started in 1943 as a small business & over time they have grown into a large organization with multiple restaurants.
Our driver Raju told us to be there as early as possible to avoid rush. We said 7:30? He said ‘no, latest 7:20’. We aware amused by the precision but were later very thankful to him for this suggestion.
At 7:18 when we walked in, there was only 1 table (out of 6 tables) empty. By 7:30 pm there was a queue.
We looked lost since we did not know Tamil & the gentlemen serving did not know much hindi/ English & this led to the staff treat us as special guests at their home. Several people came to check on us several times during the meal & we felt we were dining at their home!!!
Mukunthan had given us a list of food that we should order. We just followed his suggestions. We also ordered the only dish that Raju suggested.
The interiors were simple & nice. The dining hall had wooden furniture. The waiting & takeaway area was large & had seating against the wall as well.
Food was served on banana leaf. The custom is that guest re-cleans their leaf with water using fingers before starting your eat. Guests also fold the leaf in a certain way to indicate end of the meal.
Bowled over by the variety of the dishes & the simplicity of the food that tasted so good. We realized after this meal & most other meals in Madurai that most food saved in restaurants in delhi NCR pretending to be South Indian food are no match for what the real food was like.
Another interesting aspect that we observed is that Madurai was built as a temple town & it is still a temple town. People of all faiths live here & eat everything from vegetarian to non vegetarian food. There is thankfully no force / restriction by authorities like in many cities of Northern India. Food choices are personal & that is being respected here.
Detailed description – in case u hv the time to njoy reading:
We started with Nandu omelet, the only dish suggested by Raju. Nandu means crab. So Nandu omelet was crab omelet.
The omelet was juicy, soft & had robust flavours of crab. The seasoning was perfect. Rate this 4.5/5
Mutton kari dosai is a specialty of this restaurant. We heard that this restaurant pioneered the dish & now many others serve it too.
This is a thick dosai cooked with meat pieces & gravy on the top. The thickness of the dosai was approx 3/4 of an inch. The depth of meat varied from one part to the other.
The fermented flavour of the super soft dosa added to the joy of eating this dosai. The meat was soft & great to taste. Rate it 4.5/5.
Egg dosai is dosa with a layer of beaten egg. It was good to taste, had a fermented feel, a sour tinge & was a bit low on salt. That put the balance of taste off when we had this dosai as it is. However, when eaten with the curries mentioned below, the taste was perfect. We were a bit intrigued by the presence of jeera in the egg dosai as we are probably not used to having jeera in omelets.
Rate it 3/5
Mutton chukka is small pieces of mutton cooked in a thin gravy. The mutton pieces were boneless & had fat in them. The fat & meat ratio was very good & that added flavour to the gravy as well as made the texture very enjoyable. Rate it 4.5/5
Liver fry was very good. The liver pieces were soft & the gravy tasted better than the one at Venu biryani hotel, Dindigul. Rate it 4.25/5
Overall rating of food that we had at Konar kadai averages out to 4.2/5
Will surely want to have this on my list when we visit Madurai again.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BY YUMMRAJ
Pls don’t forget to eat the sweet pan from the shop outside this restaurant. It’s part of the experience I would say.