Thaenthinai
A shopper browses through a rack in which rice and millets are stacked in neat rows; a cooker whistle goes off in the kitchen at the back, while diners start walking in to seat themselves at the short tables for a millet-heavy meal. There is a lot happening towards lunch time at Nattrinai Thaenthinai at Kurumbapalayam, an organic store with a restaurant inside its premises. Nattrinai, started by three partners eleven years ago, now has two branches in the city. The store sources organic produce from marginal farmers in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. “Four years ago, we decided to open our own restaurant inside our shop,” says T Senthil Kumar, one of the founders, who is also a farmer.
The idea, according to him, is to offer simple, millet and heritage-rice based meals that are healthy, as well as drive home the concept of going back to our roots. “We came up with the combo meal idea after a lot of trial and error,” explains Senthil, as our lunch thaali arrives. “Initially, we did suffer setbacks since people were not used to consuming millets in the place of rice,” he adds.
