One of the closely guarded secrets of Madurai is its culinary spread. Apart from a plethora of street food options, there are the scores of ‘mess’ (restaurants). Most look plain at first sight but this is where you will find some of the fines Tamil food. Despite being a pilgrim town, Madurai is well known for its non-vegetarian food as well as its vegetarian spread. Some of the things that you cannot miss are the special idlis, idiappams (string hoppers), the egg-rolled Koothu Parotta, the Kari Dosai (with layers of egg and mutton), Kola Urundai (spicy meat ball), prawn biryani, etc. There is a market dedicated to bananas of all kinds. You cannot leave Madurai without having tasted Jigarthanda, a sweet (cloyingly so to those not fond of sweets) drink essentially made of milk, ice-cream and fruit gum. One of the best places to have it is 'Famous', located on the East Marret and South Masi Street junction but you can have it anywhere, even carts by the roadside; each seller has their own set of ingredients for the concoction. For a curated food walk, you may contact Vanakkam Madurai