The traditional kuttu vellum is what this eaterie which specialises in food from Kerala calls itself (I cannot get myself to call it ‘Keralan’, though I believe that’s what the stylish people say nowadays). Just off the Western Express highway, on the service road, it is a small, neat restaurant, which has included boats, bells and traditional diyas in its décor. We are there just before Onam, the festival to celebrate the annual homecoming of King Mahabali and are therefore already into Onam mode — only thalis will be served.
While waiting — there’s only one waiter so he has a fair amount of running around to do, we browse through the a la carte menu which has plenty of mouth-watering stuff to offer — meen of every kind jumping up from the pages of the menu, cooked in every possible way or so it seems. But for us, it is the thali.
The non-vegetarian thali — by the way, the one waiter who was from Uttarakhand —
pronounced every dish so as to impress my fastidious Malayalee dining companion — came with, the waiter told us, a fried chicken starter, fish curry, chicken curry, two vegetable dishes and a sweet dish.
This sounded quite substantial enough and soon we didn’t feel quite so bad that we could not order from the a la carte menu. The other diners seemed to be regulars who were quite used — perhaps not always happily — to these rules and regulations. They were so close that sometimes you had to chat with them — like people standing in an airport check-in queue.
The Sadhya arrives on a banana leaf (with a plate underneath) and looks very sumptuous. There’s avial — that famous Malayalee semi-dry mixed vegetable dish — and the other
famous dry cabbage with coconut. There’s also sambhar and rasam. Two appams arrive first, hot and delicately fragrant with the coconut within. I reverse my Bengali code of eating and have the appams with the chicken starter — which is just fried pieces of boneless chicken with some underlying South Indian feel. Nice, but unexceptional.
The fish curry on the other hand is very good. Not a moilee but with coconut milk and spicy as well. Went with the appams like a dream. The fastidious — and good-looking he says — companion would not touch the fish until the rice arrived. The vegetable dishes were also good — I have a weakness for both of them.
But the chicken was truly strange. The gravy tasted like it had betel — paan — leaves in it which is something I have never come across before. The companion said in a superior manner that he was unaware of the eating habits of North Kerala and the only waiter was from Uttarakhand.
I made a mistake with the rice and should have opted for the Kerala rice — soft, pink, pearl-like and very absorbent of the curry — rather than the regular basmati. However, I had the rice with the sambhar and the papads, so it went fine with that. The rasam was peppery hot and I, at least, liked it. There were also some chutneys, banana chips and fried jackfruit dipped in jaggery, all traditional accompaniments to an Onam Sadhya.
The sweet was ada pradaman, a sort of steamed rice pancake in a coconut milk and jaggery sauce. Not too sweet and not milky at all and therefore perfect as far as I was concerned.
I asked the fastidious (and good-looking) companion how he rated the meal compared to his mother’s cooking and he gave it a six on 10. The buttermilk he said was the best and most authentic. I however walked out feeling more generous and certain that I would have to come back and try the whole menu.
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