It’s a Meat Fest at Chandu’s Deluxe

Ragi Mudde, Mutton Chops, Thale Mamsa 

Soft drinks or the tipple of your choice sourced from a neighbouring booze shop.

It’s rustic, meat fare that comes at throwaway prices.

In these parts, Chandu’s status in legendary to say the least. It’s been around for ages and if you ask around your dads and uncles, who’ve grown up around here, chances are they’ll remember it with great fondness too. Being one of the rare restaurants, around the Malleswaram 8th cross area, that offers an uninhibited meat fest {including a long selection of offal dishes} at impressive prices, Chandu’s continues to hold sway. We arrived to a packed restaurant in the middle of a busy, work day.

Vegetarians are bound to feel ignored at Chandu’s. The waiter comes by and rattles out a long list of meaty offerings to help you choose. While they don’t call themselves a military hotel, their menu offerings and no-frills style of functioning will remind you of one. We ordered a ragi ball and a plate of rice. Both came with a mild, green curry that has an almost missable meaty flavour. The ragi ball is soft and devoid of any lumps, so all you need to do is dunk into the waiting bowl of meaty curry and wolf it down without much effort.

Chandu’s extensive gravy/fry offerings includes an awful lot of offal dishes. Sheep brain, intestines, head, liver, and trotters are all available. We tried the head and liver versions. The head meat or Thale Mamsa was an interesting combination of textures – chewy, coarse and tender. Each element was cooked to the right consistency and this made it our favourite. The liver too was firm on the outside and creamy on the inside. We also dug into a serving of Mutton Chops, the meat came off the bone easily and when paired with bites of the ragi ball, it was a joy to eat. Our only grouse was that all three dishes were drenched in the same pepper-heavy curry that didn’t vary much.

There’s no real ambience that Chandu’s can boast off. You go here for the food. A small, brightly-painted room crowded with benches and tables is what you get. The sounds and the smells of the bustling kitchen near by might interrupt your conversation at regular intervals. 

You won’t have to convince us too hard to come back here once in a while for the offal offerings especially considering the spectacular prices.