On my third visit to Dashamakan, mercifully, the rain did not stop me; though the night before brought an unprecedented downpour, one heavy enough to turn the street to slush and cancel my first two attempts. The rain has done, in a single wet night, what Chennai’s heat alone could never manage, cooling the air by evening, and I arrive just after the drizzle eases, grateful for it in a way only someone who has walked this street under a full sun would understand.
The street never fully shuts down in the rain; it simply loses the rush that usually builds from afternoon onward and stretches deep into the night. Tonight, as the air outside cools, the stalls do the opposite — heating up, charcoal burning low under wide grills, flames rising over racks of beef kebabs and cutlets laid out to cook.
The muddy road, narrowed further by the CMRL construction (at Pattalam) running alongside, an obvious obstacle into the pavement, does not stop the crowd. Vehicles keep inching past on either side, and customers queue anyway, especially outside A1 Food Stall and the tangle of shops pressed close around it.
On my left, S Latheef Biriyani Centre, Qureshi Kabab Corner, and Madeena Biriyani & Fast Food stand glued beside each other, and just past them are A1 Beef Stall and Awaseems Shawarma Stall. Then A1 Wheel Kebab Centre, a little further along, until finally, A1 Hyderabad holds its own stretch of pavement near the end of the street. Above the shops, there are curious house owners peeping out and into the shops to see the evening rush.
A bite of history
Abdul Rashid, returning from evening prayers at Masjid E Akbar, stops long enough to tell me why the street carries the name it does, unhurried in a way the crowd rushing past him is not. “It is told, vaai mozhiyaale (through word-of-mouth), that the area is named after Dada Peer. There is a dargah here associated with Dada Peer, and the name [Dadashamakan] refers to that place.” Near the dargah, in the vicinity, there is a slaughterhouse, probably where the shop owners source their meat.
At the far end of the street, I meet a woman cooking in a thallu vandi, a mound of tawa beef smoking scarlet over the flame in front of her, and for a moment I consider starting my tour of the street right there. As I taste a little, as far as my IBS will allow, she smiles and tells me she is only helping her grandmother — one of perhaps three women working anywhere on this street at all — who has stepped away to the washroom.
She calls her grandmother back early, and N Aktar, who runs Evening Tiffin Centre, arrives, still checking the beef if it’s done even as she turns to ask her granddaughter who I am. “I worked at a hotel nearby for many years. That is where I learnt the craft of cooking, especially various delicacies of beef,” she begins in Tamil, before switching to Hindi telling that she is comfortable in either in Hindi or Urdu. She continues, “This stall was set up recently, almost five months ago. The street has gained a lot of attention after people like you [reporters/content creators] started coming here, fascinated by it.” She runs the stall alone, selling beef tawa curry and cutlets along with kal dosa.
Reels and YouTube videos from social media influencers have brought a surge of visitors to the street, since almost five years ago — confirm the shop owners — drawing people from even other states like Kerala and Karnataka who come looking for a complete, budget-friendly, non-vegetarian street food experience.
Inside A1 Beef Stall, the manager sits behind the counter, calling instructions to employees who scatter in different directions to keep up with orders piling in faster than they can be delivered. When I introduce myself, he tells me, without quite looking up, that it is peak hour and he cannot stop, so I take a seat instead, inside the hustle and turn to the customers around me.
Tried and tested
Rohith VK, an IT employee who is a regular here, tells me that he had a bone marrow soup from the stall outside and came in for the kebab. “They give piping hot pieces of bone. The marrow bone soup is very rich and strong in flavour. The marrow itself has a distinct taste, and with the heat and pepper in the soup, you really feel it in your throat,” he informs. He orders his regular rumali roti and tawa beef and then a few kebabs.
The menu extends well beyond kebabs, and the regular client makes that clear early on as he walks me through it. “The bone is sliced, marinated well, and cooked over the fire before it is served,” says Rohith. His friend Dinesh Raghavan lists out the dishes they have tried — seekh kebab, wheel kebab, pepper curry, masala pakoda, urundai curry, curry vada, idiyappam, and chapathi among what the street has to offer, before circling back to the one thing he insists cannot be skipped. “The mint chutney is very important. When you come here for seekh, the mint chutney is a must. The lemon gives it another layer of sourness, so squeeze some over it before eating.”
The beef dishes, in his telling, differ more in texture than they first appear to from a distance, each one doing something slightly different with the same base ingredient. Dinesh says, “The rumali roti is so large that one is enough for a meal. The gravy goes very well with the rumali. The masala is good, although the salt is slightly on the stronger side.” The biryani in the street also draws some praise. Rohith says, “It is hot, fragrant, and full of flavour. But it isn’t as good as the other dishes here.”
The nalli dosa from outside thallu vandi stalls gets its own moment too, and Rohith describes it with a lot of enthusiasm. “They put two marrow bones into it along with the dosa batter, egg, onion, spices, and coriander. The marrow flavour comes through strongly, and the spices make it even more rich.”
After the crisis
A shortage of commercial LPG cylinders this year, paired with a steep rise in what they cost, has forced street food vendors to raise prices on several items by Rs 20, so that beef seekh kebab, once Rs 60 for two pieces, now costs Rs 80. But it is much more affordable than most of the other food streets in the city. A staff member of A1 Hyderabad, requesting anonymity, says that they had to secure cylinders from private entities to keep the show running, as the demand is high almost every day. “I hope the street continues to prosper so that we will get more customers and probably more salaries,” he says, hurrying off to deliver hot pepper beef to a customer.
Opposite A1 Food Stall, tall apartment blocks rise above the street. The rain makes the road narrower. Young men stop their scooters just long enough to eat a plate of beef cutlets standing up, plates balanced on the seat or held in one hand. Women, coming from their day jobs, park and order parcels to carry home instead of staying to eat. And through all of it, the shopkeepers keep frying, plating, restocking, and already reaching for the next order.