Inside Madurai’s Chandran Mess, home to the beloved ayirai meen kuzhambu

What’s the big deal with Madurai’s ayirai meen kuzhambu anyway? I grudgingly order a plate of the curry — I’m a die-hard biryani lover — one afternoon at Chandran Mess to find out. It arrives piping hot and I mix it with rice served on banana leaf. One mouthful and I understand: the curry, interspersed with soft slivers of the sweetish ayirai meen , is a perfect balance of tanginess from tamarind, heat from red chillies, and a lingering sweetness from shallots. It is one of the star dishes at Chandran Mess, for a good reason. Chandran Mess is powered by the hard work of a steely 66-year-old. R Banumathi was 15 when she married M Ramachandran, a cousin whose parents ran a small eatery in a by-lane in Tallakulam in Madurai. As a new bride, she went straight to the kitchen to help her in-laws run a business in which she had no prior experience.