Out and About in Chennai – Moore Market (and more!)

I spent the day yesterday wandering around the city; I couldn’t have chosen a worse day to do it. The monsoons have pretty much been non-existent this year and it is still as hot as summer. Ugh. But! It was still a good day and I managed to get to the legendary Moore Market in Chennai where, rumour has it, you can buy EVERYTHING. After having been there I can see why they say that.

It all started when I moaned about not being able to find vintage props and flatware for my food blog, Sybaritic Pleasures. My mum, in whose ear I was moaning at the time, piped up with, “Did you try Moore Market?” I hadn’t! I managed to snag a gorgeous vintage platter that is only slightly chipped at one corner, some flatware, and even two silver-coated antique containers (one of which is really pretty). I would post photographs of them, but they’re all soaking in cleaning fluid at the moment. So that will come in a later post.

Enjoy this photo post!

A sneaky breakfast in the car before I set off to pick up my friends. A Snickers bar – my guilty pleasure once in a while!

This is the ‘shop’ I got that platter from! It was right at the bottom of a load of plates and I’m really glad I sorted through all of that to find it. And because it was chipped she gave it to me for almost nothing!

You can even buy a musical keyboard here if you want!

Vintage vacuum cleaners at another shop in the market! *giggle* I don’t think I’ve ever seen these except in photographs of sixties housewives and their appliances!

More vintage cleaning goodness!

I saw this box of ancient watches just jumbled together and sitting in a corner of the same shop that had the vintage vacuum cleaners.

This shop just pretty much mostly sold empty bottles. Perfume bottles, liquor bottles, beer bottles – you name it, they had it.

Really ancient vanity cases hoping to be bought and loved again.

The shop owner hopefully told me that all of those video cameras were in ‘excellent’ condition and offered to take a movie of me to prove it. I politely declined.

I even found a shop that was selling rather crude weights and gym equipment!

Spades and trowels, baby. Spades and trowels.

This man was pretty interesting; he was manning the trowels shop and he was hilarious. While staying completely poker-faced he pretty much stood there and talked non-stop about how his spades weren’t really that good, he knew, and he knew he was just going to stand there and talk to himself all day long because nobody was interested in having a garden any more. There was a large crowd of people around him and his wife was so busy selling the goods that she could barely even look up at the people who were paying her money.

Moore Market – or rather, a corner of it. It pretty much goes on for miles.

We moved from the madness and mayhem of Moore Market to the madness of Haddows Road and the calm oasis that is the café in the Oxford Book Store. I had my first real meal of the day in a gorgeous paneer and pepper kati roll.

We all ended up ordering the clove and ginger ‘truck driver’s 100-mile chaa’, which, according to the info under it, is the favourite tea of Indian truckers. ‘Drink this’, the info promised, ‘and you will have the verve and energy to drive for a hundred miles afterwards.’ It was served in these darling glass tumblers held in place by those silver monkey cup holders! I have to say that it was delicious; a perfect pick-me-up.

We moved on to Khader Nawaz Khan Road where we saw a large queue outside an ice cream shop. It turned out to be The Cream and Fudge Factory. We were wondering what all the fuss was about, so I joined the queue to find out. It turned out to be an ice cream dessert bar and it was _really_ packed.

A part of the rather interesting menu. I decided to order their Strawberry Short Cake for me, and random concoctions for everyone else. What? I wasn’t going to go out, ask everyone what they wanted, and then join the queue again, was I?

Some of the basic ice cream flavours at The Cream and Fudge Factory.

What my Strawberry Shortcake looked like. It _tasted_ like a strawberry trifle with cake, strawberries, and ice cream. But it was just – alright, really. The other flavours were a bit better, especially the Mint Mocha Chip.

8 Comments

  • stace8383 7th October 2012 at 11:59 am

    Oh my god, those monkey cup holder thingies!! SO CUTE!! Best thing ever. Pity you couldn’t buy them. hehe

    Reply
    • Awanthi @ Sybaritic Pleasures 7th October 2012 at 12:02 pm

      Heh. I know, right? And I don’t even know where THEY got them from, because I’ve never seen them anywhere! That tea was delicious as well; you would have loved it!

      Reply
  • Mary Horsfall 7th October 2012 at 12:29 pm

    I’m taking umbrage at your use of the term ‘ancient’. Some of those things looked very familiar to me! I’m not that old, I’m not, really I’m not.
    I agree with Stace about those monkey glass holders. Very desirable.

    Reply
    • Awanthi @ Sybaritic Pleasures 7th October 2012 at 12:36 pm

      Oh, I’m so sorry! *laugh* I know you’re not! I think you’re the same age as my mum – and she is definitely not old either!

      I seriously covet those holders too.

      Reply
  • teaguemom 7th October 2012 at 2:20 pm

    The Cream and Fudge shop bears a striking resemblance to our “Coldstone Creamery” ice cream shops.

    Reply
  • Adventures in Anderland 11th October 2012 at 12:10 am

    I want one of those monkey cup things, too!! Wouldn’t it be lovely as a vase?
    (Psst. you have some odd coding going on where each image is embedded withiin the border of the one above, so by the bottom, they’re oddly squished and indented 17 times)

    Reply
    • Awanthi @ Sybaritic Pleasures 11th October 2012 at 9:46 am

      Oh god. I know. I don’t know how to fix it either. I’m hopeless with code, I’m hopeless with WordPress themes, and I’m getting horribly frustrated with it on the whole. I wish I could move my blog over to your site but I think I’d lose a lot of my reader base. *tears hair*

      Reply
  • thehungrymum 15th May 2013 at 3:51 pm

    What a fun day! I just love exploring markets and finding pre-loved treasures. These photos really capture the vibe of your day and made me feel like I was there with you!

    Reply

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