Well, it was a bad start to the year, but soon things got better. Much better. 

G and I had consulted extensively - well, we swapped a couple of messages on WhatsApp - and agreed on Chez Mal at the Malmaison for a general catch up, discussing the 2025 inReading foodie awards and the first review of 2026.

But, as usual we had a couple of pints - at the Oakford for a change (The Railway Pub where we had arranged to meet was shut - as you will see, 2026 was not going well for the inReading food blog). As ever we bantered and tarried a bit longer than we had intended and arrived at 13:58. 

And we were turned away. 

The kitchen closes at 14:00. In a bloody hotel! Well, sod you Malmaison. The dining room looked quite miserable and I'm not sure that we will bother to return at 12:30 on the spot for lunch anytime soon. Mal by name, Mal by service. 

So we panicked. Our other shortlist was Persian Palace all the way out in Caversham or Namesugame on Oracle Riverside, but it was pouring with rain and I had eaten udon for dinner the previous night.

So I scoured my list of places to review and we opted for the new Chettinad restaurant that has taken over from Pappadams on Kings Road.

Anjappar Chettinad Restaurant is part of an Indian casual-dining restaurant chain, founded in Chennai all the way back in my birth year, 1964. So it must be doing something right.

Apparently it now operates in over 30 locations around the world, including Chennai, Erode, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, and Bangalore in India as well as Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Middle East, Australia, the Netherlands and North America.

This seems to be the group's first venture in the UK and I'm not clear if the Reading branch is a fully owned and operated enterprise or a franchise (not that this matters much in the catering industry these days).

Anjappar offers South Indian cuisine, particularly focusing on producing Chettinad-style meals. 

Now, this needs some defining. Some places are renowned for their cooking worldwide but few regions as small as Chettinad have such a reputation.

Essentially Chettinad is a small region of villages inland from Chennai in Tamil Nadu in the far south of the Indian subcontinent where the Nattukottai Chettiar community are renowned for their cooking.

The cuisine tends to be quite hot and bold flavors with rich sauces made from masala based on freshly ground spices like star anise, black stone flower, and peppercorns, often used in thick gravies for chicken, mutton, seafood, and vegetables. As with most Tamils, the cuisine used to be vegetarian but is now more heavily meat orientated. It features slow-cooked dishes, sun-dried ingredients, coconut, is served with rice and traditional accompaniments, and reflects outside influences such as the trade carried out by the Portuguese, French and British in trading posts along the south eastern Indian coast for centuries as well as a pronounced influence from Burmese and other South East Asian cuisines.

In this theme, the menu is long and far reaching. It won't be unfamiliar to anyone who has grown up with the greatest hits of British Indian cuisine, but this is a restaurant that will be more familiar to our community's extensive Southern Indian population - not that they are not already well served along King's Road, Reading's own 'curry mile' these days.

It strikes me that many restaurants in Reading are actually community canteens , using a captive audience to build a wider base. The many African restaurants in Oxford Road, the new influx of Hong Kong eating parlours and eastern European restaurants such as Piwnica. These are restaurants built for particular communities where we outsiders are made very welcome, albeit as somewhat exotic visitors.

And this was our first impression of Anjappar.

We were greeted like friends, but unfamiliar ones. This is common in Reading these days. On my recent first visits to other newcomers such as YL Restaurant and Take Your Time we were actually quized on why we were visiting, not because we were unwelcome but because these are restaurants set up for certain parts of our community but which have a passion and a longing to bring in those of us outside their direct communities.

People are proud of not just their business but of their cooking and their cuisine and how it represents their culture. 

One of the great things about living in Reading is that you can, in a day, make friends from all over the world and come to understand other cultures and points of view whilst enjoying a great meal. And long may this win over hatred (I wonder does Nigel Farage eat Indian, or even French? Or just good old British fish and chips, brought to these fair shores by Jews from Portugal?)

Food is a great way of integrating people (with the odd exception https://share.google/gpwmM9svL3bvR87Da)

As if to prove the point that we were from another planet, ordering a bottle of Shiraz from the short wine list resulted in one of the staff scurrying to the offie nearby for a bottle of Castello Diablo (at £18 a very reasonable markup for the walk). I'm not sure that they had envisaged anyone ordering wine, especially at lunchtime. A different culture but a boozy Welshman and Scotsman were accommodated with a smile.

As mentioned, the menu here is extensive and covers a lot of the south east, if not the whole of the southern tip of India (this venue was previously a Keralan restaurant and still has a lot of fish on the menu).

The dhosas look fantastic and I will return for one. Regular readers will know that this is a major favourite for me and from going down to having nowhere in town to order these lovely pancakes there are now a surfeit of options.

But on this day we both went for the easy option that would enable us to cover the menu well - a chicken thali and a lamb thali.

These were extensive and delicious. Both came with a poppadom, roti, yoghurt, sharp lime dip, rice, sambal, two veg dishes and two meat dishes (one on and one off the bone in each case) plus a rice pud.  In Indian terms I had Mutton Curry, Mutton Kola, Rice, Rasam, Poriyal, Kootu, Curd, Pickle, Papadam and a Sweet.

The highlighs for me were my lamb curry and the chicken 65 that I nicked from G. (Chicken 65 is named after the year of its invention, 1965, when it was introduced by A.M. Buhari at his eponymous hotel in Chennai.

We had been asked if we wanted a starter and the mind boggles... Actually, G in his post holiday enthusiasm pretty much cleared his plates and I managed the majority of mine. Now, get this, the chicken meal was £12 and the lamb meal broke the bank at £13. This is extraordinary value these days and less than a takeaway main dish from most local Indians on Deliveroo in Reading

This is just delicious food that is difficult to fault.

The space remains tiny - some twenty covers, so they need to make this a fast food joint and get tables occupied and turned over regulalry at these prices, and keep the place full.

Considering that I was never able to get a table when it was Pappadams and they failed, I do hope the new owners know what they are doing.

But as for the food, it was all just thoroughly delicious. Perhaps the only complaint is that one chicken and one lamb dish were both very 'on the bone', which I guess is why the broth was so lovely.

With the brought in wine and a healthy tip this was under £50 for a lovely meal. Beat that.

On a street with Madras Flavours, a personal favourite, Reading's perennial best Indian at the House of Flavours, a Mumbai fast food joint that's quite popular, a great SrinLankan cocktail chain and then Chillis and Royal Tandoori up the road, we are utterly spoiled on Kings Curry Rd.