South Indian Meals and Tiffin

In the south the midday meal is called meals, and it arrives as rice on a banana leaf with small heaps of vegetable around it: sambar, rasam, a dry poriyal, a curd rice to finish, pickle, papad and often a sweet. Refills come round unasked until you fold the leaf to signal you are done. Tiffin is the other half of the system, the lighter meals of morning and evening: idli steamed from fermented rice and lentil batter, dosa spread thin on a griddle, vada fried in rings, uttapam, all served with coconut chutney and sambar and finished with filter coffee poured between two steel tumblers.

What you actually see

• The banana leaf meal - rice with sambar, rasam, vegetables and curd rice, refilled as you eat.
• Idli and vada - steamed cakes and fried lentil rings, the standard breakfast pairing everywhere.
• Dosa on the griddle - fermented batter spread thin and crisped, plain or filled with spiced potato.
• Filter coffee - strong decoction and hot milk, poured back and forth between tumbler and bowl.

When to go

Meals are served in a narrow window, roughly midday to two, and tiffin rooms run early morning and again from late afternoon; arrive outside those hours and the kitchen will simply be shut. Sadya, the festival version of the leaf meal in Kerala, is served at Onam in August or September. Season matters very little.

Honest expectations

Halls are functional, hot and fast, and you are expected to eat and leave rather than linger over the table. Eating rice and sambar by hand from a leaf takes practice and gets messy. Chilli and tamarind levels are high, and a full meals plate is a great deal of rice. Cutlery usually has to be asked for.

Nearby

Almost every southern town has its own meals halls, with Chennai, Madurai and Mysuru reliable places to start.