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The Southern Trail: Draavin Canteen Reinvents the Regional Experience A new address, a new identity, but the same authentic soul. There's something deeply satisfying about watching a restaurant evolve. Not the kind of evolution where everything changes beyond recognition in pursuit of some trendy concept, but the organic kind—where the core remains intact while the expression becomes bolder, more confident. That's precisely what struck me when I visited the newly rebranded Draavin Canteen at DLF Downtown 2 in Gurgaon. Chef Ruchira Hoon's Dakshin Canteen has metamorphosed into Draavin, and while the name may be new, the commitment to authentic Southern cooking remains refreshingly unwavering. This isn't fusion pretending to be tradition. This isn't "deconstructed" anything. This is, quite simply, the food of India's spice routes served with confidence and clarity. The New Avatar The space itself makes a statement. Earthy interiors punctuated with cultural touches—nothing overdone, nothing Instagram-desperate. It's the kind of design that suggests the food will do the talking, which, thankfully, it does. The menu is ambitious in scope, spanning Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra, Karnataka, Telangana, and even reaching out to Lakshadweep and Sri Lanka. That's a lot of culinary territory to cover, and the risk of spreading oneself thin is very real. But here's where Chef Hoon's vision comes through. Rather than attempting to be encyclopedic, the menu cherry-picks intelligently—the dishes that tell the story of each region without overwhelming the diner or, worse, diluting authenticity in the name of variety. The Food That Matters I began, as one should, with the Chilled Manga Rasam—a cold raw mango broth gently tempered with spices and served with appalam. Now, rasam is one of those dishes that separates the wheat from the chaff. Get the balance wrong, and you've got sour soup. Get it right, and you've captured the essence of South Indian home cooking. Draavin gets it right. The chill factor was genius—on a warm afternoon in Gurgaon, this wasn't just food, it was therapy. What Draavin Canteen represents is something larger than just another restaurant opening!

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This post was published on 04th November, 2025 by Rahul on his Instagram handle "@rahulprabhakar (Rahul Prabhakar)". Rahul has total 64.6K followers on Instagram and has a total of 2.4K post. Rahul receives an average engagement rate of % per post on Instagram. This post has received 63 comments which are greater than the average comments that Rahul gets. Overall the engagement rate for this post was than the average for the profile.