Chennai Kitchen - The Marble Palace with its Titians, Rembrandts and interesting garden menagerie.

Mr. Mullick a carom partner at the British Club lives at the Marble Palace.

We met in front of Statesman House at 9 again this Sunday. We had breakfast at Chennai Kitchen which is in the cul de sac on the opposite side of the road. That way we could compare the two South Indian restaurants.

We had a lovely breakfast at Chennai Kitchen . We were 11 for breakfast plus Nitish’s kid Nishant who was fascinated by the cascading water on the wall and the tableau of saras cranes (?) behind us. I had an absolutely ambrosial Special Upma made of semai/vermicelli not suji. It came with little katoris/bowls of ghee, gun powder, tomato chutney, dhania/coriander chutney and special coconut chutney along with the sambar. Poor Carl’s cheese Uttapam was quite bland so I gave him most of my chutneys to spicen things up. The South Indian filter coffee was excellent. Barry and Himanshu of HSBC also tried the milk shakes. Francois tried the cheese, onion masala dosa, and Gurbir the idlis. Not sure what Doc and the Dutch at the next table ordered but Dirk and Jaap both voted Chennai Kitchen as better than Anand. Himanshu, up since 5 to play golf at Tolly Club, wasn’t feeling driven enough to drive all the way to the Marble Palace. He and Gurbir, part of my Alipore contingent, enjoyed a full south Indian breakfast and decided to head home.

Ten of us proceeded to the Marble Palace in a convoy and got stuck in a communist rally in the lane leading to the palace. We again had Doc give us a commentary on the Babu culture of North Calcutta and of course once inside the palace, there was a family retainer who explained the various objets d’art he’d been looking after for decades. Barry proclaimed the palace to be better than Versailles ;-D but not as well maintained. Francois was suitably impressed by the chandeliers, Belgian glass, Italian marble and the two statues of Napoleon, the only Indian object being the hookah/shisha with 4 pipes. The Dutch couldn’t get over the Rubens. It was a wall size painting of the marriage of I’ve forgotten who because Doc called it the marriage of Neela, another dig at my single status and now my Rubenesque stature!

The guide showed us the working piano as well as the sitar on which Ravi Shankar played, while Hema Malini danced… Peter missed the tour but Rosie and I could imagine him bemoaning the fact that there are no more nautch girls to entertain British gentlemen. Queen Victoria, as a young lady carved out of a single piece of wood, as well as her bust in later years, did not look amused. There were Chinese vases and marble Venuses galore. But my favourites are of course the sleeping lions that dot the gardens. Each one is different and its really incredible the amount of statuary and paintings lying about the Marble Palace. The Hash group may suggest a catalogue that can be sold to visitors, but since the family is very much in residence, (we saw the oldest member reclining on an enormous divan in the dance hall), I’m not sure if they’ll agree. I can hardly do justice in attempting to catalogue all that we saw, so I’ll stop now. There was even a vendor of daab at the gate so we all enjoyed fresh coconut water and Barry tried the pulp after Doc showed him how.

The Marble Palace is open except on Mondays and Thursdays from 10 am to 4 p.m and photography is prohibited. Don’t forget to tip the guide and the guard at the gate who allows you to park inside.