Chennai Garden by Tiffin Wallah
Chennai Garden by Tiffin Wallah
127 East 28th StreetNew York, NY 10016
212 685 7301
tiffindelivery.us
M-F 11:30am-3pm, 5pm-10pm; Sa-Su 12pm-10pm
Having had an excellent dining experience at Pippali on 27th Street, we were eager to eat at Pradeep Shinde’s well known Chennai. We stopped by for the economical lunch ($8.95) one day where we found all of the dishes on the buffet to be vegetarian. We returned to the line up of chafing dishes several times, sampling the medu vada (lentil donuts), the Manchurian cauliflower, which had a strong Chinese influence, the dal palak (spinach and lentil stew) and the matar paneer (green peas and homemade cheese). Although only a few options existed for the main course, there was a smorgasbord of dipping sauces to enhance the dishes. We sat for less than an hour and were amazed at the constant flow of people coming and going. The place was packed – as soon as a table emptied out, it was refilled by newcomers. The name, Tiffin Wallah, comes from a term for metal boxes used by Indians in the last century to carry their food to work, and certainly belies the workaday approach in Manhattan.