With Kanimozhi’s endorsement, a new variety of biriyani has Chennai digging in heartily

A stroll down Chennai’s main street reveals a set of new signboards that say Thalappakattu Biriyani in distinctive yellow and red lettering.

This is no ordinary biriyani. The dish is from a small restaurant in Dindigal, in the heart of Tamil Nadu, and it has taken the city by storm.

Thalappa kattu literally means headgear or a towel wrapped on the forehead, the kind Rajinikanth ties in a blur before a fight. The story goes that a cook wrapped a pot of biriyani cooking over a slow fire with his head towel to prevent steam escaping. So was born a dish that is now available in chicken, mutton, fish, egg and ‘strictly’ vegetarian options. Hashnas Abdullah, who started a chain of 22 restaurants called Chennai Rawther Thalappakattu Biriyani in Tamil Nadu’s capital, is set to take the brand overseas. “We have started a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. We are starting restaurants in Sri Lanka and Qatar. Inshallah, we will soon be serving on Air Asia’s flights,’’ he says.

Chennai had its first taste of the dish four years ago when Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi brought the biriyani to Chennai as part of her annual cultural fest. It was introduced to visitors of the traditional Tamil food section as Dindigal’s Thalappakattu Biriyani, a revival of a dish typical to central Tamil Nadu. Thanks to media coverage, biriyani lovers thronged stalls in search of the towel-clad biriyani pot. And within months, biriyani outlets in Chennai, including roadside joints, started advertising the dish. They even put up boards in a distinct yellow and red, the colours of the Dindigal outlet.

As its aroma wafted across the Cooum riverside, the ‘original’ Ananda Vilas Dindigal Naidu Thalappakattu biriyani, with its ‘we have no other branches tag’, filed a case in the Madras High Court. “They don’t have a geographical indication tag or a patent… They only have political backing,’’ says one of the owners of the eatery.

Hashnas says that when his chain responded in court, the bench asked all outlets to state specifically what type of Thalappakattu biriyani was being served.

An auto rickshaw driver in the city puts it best: “Biriyani is biriyani, saar. They are trying to take everyone for a ride claiming it’s Thalappakattu biriyani, avalo da (That’s all)!”