Chennai And Back.

I had a friends wedding to attend in Chennai so a bunch of us decided to drive down from Bangalore.
The night before we had dessert at Hatworks Boulevard (the exact name eludes me.) and mine (chocolate something) included free butter paper which I was expected to eat, or so I was informed by the manager (it's butter paper sir! You can eat it! The last time at this joint I sent back my dessert as it was rotten and they very sweetly doggy-bagged it and charged me for it!).
A quick breakfast at Koshy's was the order of the day, iced tea (best in the world!), eggs, sausages and toast (all that buttery goodness...mmmmm....).
You can buy these sausages at Bangalore Ham shop but for some reason they taste vile when cooked at home.
Unfortunately for us, we chose to take Old Madras Road on the very day all that political natak was happening in Bangalore. So we had to turn back at Hosakote and take some cart track to Hosur Road. We lost a good two hours doing those 25 km. But we were greeted by this spanking 6-lane highway once we crossed over into TN. The roads in TN are awesome, just plain awesome. Bangalore has well and truly lost the race. To say nothing of their IT Parks and ....
As this road is part of the Golden Quadrilateral, you see some pretty freaky signs. Kolkatta had me thinking of Tangra and all that Chinese food, but we pressed on towards Madras.
A large portion of the drive is on toll roads (toll plaza above), the total cost is around Rs. 75 from Bangalore to Chennai. It makes for a great drive but I can't help thinking of all the villagers who now have this mammoth road through their back yard with no easy way across. Development be thy name!
Stopped at Vellore for a dosa, or more properly a dosai. The resteraunt had a waterfall and parrots behind a glass wall for the patrons to ogle at. Wierd that.
Pre-wedding lunch. Very very good but very very vegetarian.
Ditto.
Frozen Dotz! I love these. It's like ice-cream in the shape of little marbles.
Wedding day lunch at 9:30 AM? These Tam-Brahms! And the wedding started at 6:30 AM. Then the groom decided to go to Kashi or something of the sort....quite good fun. But lunch at 9:30 AM?!
The obligatory post-reception-night-club-party. Pasha at the Park. Don't think anybody left with the person they came with. Bloody insane. These Tam-Brahms are wild! Leather, boots, chains, some girl-on-girl action. This is the new Chennai. Suffice to say I was shocked and went in search of thair saadam.
The whole lot of us, girls and boys side went to Mahabalipuram. Some random "culture" shot this. Boooring.
We had lunch at Fishermans Cove and played cricket, volleyball, football and took rides on a catamaran.
Then we decided to stay on, invited the bride and groom and we had a blast of a party at Fishermans Cove. The remains are for all to see.
More of the same.
And the same...
Drove back on Sunday and were greeted by this wonderful vista. Though a second later I nearly ran over a scooterist on the wrong side of the road.

More food reviews once my system recovers...