Here, finally, is my final meal report from my solo trip to India in December. I spent most of the two weeks I was there in Delhi, and all of my other reports have been from there. I did also take a three-day trip to Coonoor in Tamil Nadu on college business. I was staying with an old friend while there and ate almost all my meals at her house, courtesy her wonderful cook. The one exception was this lunch in the town of Coonoor (my friend lives 40 minutes away from the town) at the one restaurant she insisted I eat at: Hotel Ramachandra. It was a rather excessive meal but also a very good one. Here, very quickly, is a look at it.

I am a little embarrassed to say that this was only my first visit to the state of Tamil Nadu. Indeed, until this trip I had never gone further south than Vijaywada (on the eastern side of the Indian peninsula) and Goa (on the western side). Well, I’ve now been pretty far south. To get to Coonoor from Delhi by air—I did not have enough time on this trip to even contemplate a train journey—you first fly to Coimbatore. This takes about three hours. You then take a car or bus up to Coonoor. The drive to Coonoor itself takes a little over two hours (my destination was a bit further); the first half of the drive is in the plains and then the second half involves a rapid and quite beautiful ascent up the Nilgiris (though if you’re prone to car-sickness, make sure to bring your Dramamine).

Coonoor itself is a small town by Indian standards (though it has almost three times the population of my small town in Minnesota) but is quite charming in the way of Indian “hill stations”—this is the term for the towns built by the British in the 19th century as havens from the heat of the plains. But I don’t know why I’m giving you this quasi-tourist book narrative: I don’t really know so very much about Coonoor. I can tell you that if you’re in search of a good meal while there, Hotel Ramachandra is a good bet.

It’s not a hotel in the Western sense. In India the term is used also for restaurants and Hotel Ramachandra is a restaurant. It’s been around for several decades and at some point in its recent past a younger member of the family that owns it seems to have decided to spruce it up somewhat. It now has three dining rooms. There’s one on the ground floor and two more on the first floor (which you get to by stairs). The first of these dining rooms—where we sat—is relatively spartan in the manner of older Indian mess halls; the other is more mod in feel—it also connects to an arcade should you want to combine eating with gaming.

We, however, were there just to eat. My friends had brought me there principally to eat their Wellington porotta (named for the nearby town of Wellington—yes, itself named for the duke). This is essentially a large Malabar porotta that is stuffed with keema masala. Of course, looking at the menu I was not able to resist the blandishments of their thalis, specifically the largest of their thalis. Accordingly, while my friends ordered a Wellington porotta, a mutton biryani and a mutton curry to share, I got their Special Meals Combo thali. Even though the menu description had indicated the contents I was a bit overwhelmed by what showed up:  a not-very small mutton biryani, an allegedly “mini” Wellington porotta and 12 bowls of things to eat with the large portion of steamed rice that’s also provided. The bowls included chicken, mutton and fish dishes as well as a number of veg dishes, sambar and rasam.

All of it was very good but I did like the biryani most of all. Granted it was a lot of food but I struggled to finish even the mini Wellington porotta. The only disappointment was the sweet. Caramel custard had been promised by the menu—and I was looking forward to this given the town’s Anglo Indian history. Alas, they didn’t have any that afternoon and I was instead served some species of extremely sweet ice cream that I was not able to manage more than one spoonful of.

Oh yes, in case you don’t know much about South Indian food, and are among the many people who have an image of it as being largely vegetarian, you might be wondering about all the meat on the menu at Ramachandra. Well, the truth is the South is far, far more non-vegetarian than North India, and Tamil Nadu in particular eats a lot of meat. Indeed, beef is not banned in the state and is easily available in the local stores. Quite apart from all the meat dishes we ordered, our meal began with three small tumblers of a lightly-spiced mutton soup/rasam that were set down on our table with the menus.

For a look at the restaurant and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see what’s coming next.

Service was of the no-frills but completely efficient variety. I don’t know how much the total came to as I was not allowed to touch the bill, but you can work it out from the menu prices. My mega-thali was less than $8 and the smaller thalis (which still serve a lot of food) are less than half the price.

There’s a very good chance I’ll be back in Coonoor in 2026 for another three days. I suppose I might eat at other places too if so, but odds are good that if the trip comes to pass I’ll be back at Ramachandra for another thali (though the next time I’m going to get one of the smaller ones).

Alright, that’s the December trip in the books. I know I’d said that I had two reports left to go but I’ve decided to hold onto the last one and combine it with one from my next trip to Delhi, which will actually be in March. Between now and then my restaurant reports will all be from the Twin Cities metro. The next of those will be on an excellent Salvadoran lunch eaten today in St. Paul. That’ll go up on Wednesday.