CHENNAI: Biryani Battle. If a smart app developer decided to make an android game out of the scenes at the few biryani shops in Chennai, a little before lunch on Ramzan — that’s exactly what he’d call it. With practically every meat-loving person craving a biryani fix on Tuesday, the few shops that served the dum preparation made a killing, “We normally serve about 150 to 200 plates of biryani at each of our outlets on a regular day,” explained Navaj Sharief, Founder and CMD of popular chain Ammi’s Biryani, “But at all of our 16 odd outlets in Chennai, we have thrice the volume of sales today,” he added happily.
With almost every stand-alone biryani seller downing shutters for Eid, chains that sold biryani like Ammi’s, Chennai Rawther Thalappakattu and Dindigul Thalappakatti saw large crowds of people, with take-away demands. “It is a custom every year for us to stay closed on Eid and we take orders for bulk deliveries for almost a month before.
The biryani master usually works through the night and we send the delivery before 10 am, so that we can take the day off,” said Hussain Kamil, who owns Althaf Biryani in Royapettah.
To meet the massive demand on Ramzan day, people who have decided to serve biryani start extremely early — so that they can wind up and leave for the day after lunch service. “We usually start the day at 4 am, but for the Ramzan rush, we have brought in extra people and we started the day at 1 am,” explained the man behind Ammi’s, which serves multiple types of biryani.
In fact, the pre-order scene has grown to such an extent that most places tend to stop taking orders once they hit 200 kg. “We have received orders up to 45 kg till the weekend, but they really started to pour in before Ramzan morning. After that we have very little extra for store sales,” said Tanveer, who has a biryani store near the Big Mosque.