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Flavours, Mubarack and home-cooked mutton

These days I am an occassional visitor to Trivandrum having shifted to Kochi in January.
These visits usually leave me with nothing more than a few hours to deal with various domestic issues be it buying provisions or attending parent teachers meeting at my daughter's school, or calling on my uncle who is house-bound after a stroke and a broken arm.
This Friday was different. My partner was away for an early morning assignment at All India Radio. So I had to give her a lift back. I suggested that we have breakfast at a newly opened restuarant.
Flavours has less than 20 covers and does not plan to be a major player in the food business as its predecessor. The Magnet Cafe, which stood at the very same site, was well-known in the city. It was demolished and for a time Coffee Beanz was my favourite coffee shop. I miss Baba Budan it served.
Coming back to Flavours, the appam and mutton stew they served was quite a good bite and I wish to return for an elaborate lunch maybe later in August. We also had black coffee as milk was out of stock at that hour. For a place so small, the ambience was great.
As my sister had to do some shopping for her house, (she will be here for less than two months) we went to the shopping distirct of the city, Chalai bazaar. As the shopping got late, my mom suggested that we have lunch at Mubarack, a popular joint for fish lovers. Sadly, most fish dishes were running short and we had to content ourselves with prawn fry. Now, this place is a modest place, which is always crowded with shoppers, shop keepers, office goers and occassional out of town visitors. Even those who have their thrist quenched in the choicest restuarants in the city would like to come down to this place tucked away in the bylanes of Chalai.
During season, there are all sorts of fishes available here. If good food and not ambience is what you relish head for Mubarak. Its namesake, New Mubarack, near the Secretariat at Statue junction, is nothing compared to the original.
That evening we had coffee at Coffee House, which still serves the coffee with little change in the flavour after all these years.
Dinner was at my uncle's place as it was my cousin's birthday. The mutton was half-cooked but the fired rice was just right. Well, the birthday cake from Ambrosia took the cake of the day. It was not my favourite Blackforest, though!

Bonchi anyone?

This is the ultimate thirst quencher for dapper Mallu in the capital of God's Own Country, a state where the majority sex is scared to step out after dusk.
Any guesses as to what this is? Dude, it is nothing other than your lime soda. Even outside the capital of lechers of the world no one understands the name.
In the other parts of the state it is called soda naranga!
The only other drink that can beat Bonchi is the Campa cola (they call it Kampa cola in Dilli) mixed with a special concotion added to it that is available opposite erstwhile Fleet Street of India, Bhadurshah Zafar Marg in New Delhi.
All the pan shops in the city provide Bonchi with an option of sweet, salt and also chilled soda. The sound of opening the old soda bottle as the marble pops into the bottle resembles a small cracker going off. The new caps are nothing compared to this.
Even these pan shops are slowly disappering from the city to be replaced with coffee shops. CCD has one outlet in Kaudiar and the two others are near where the techies rule the roost. The first coffee lounge to set shop in the city was a huge success until it had to find a new franchise and then it ceased to exist. Coffee Beanz was my favourite hangout.
But ask anyone what Mallu's favourite drink is and it would be gold old rum (Old Monk)that would come up top.
I would always vote for toddy, but good old toddy is a rarity in coconut country today.

Have you ever had Pazhampori?

Every Malayali's mouth waters when they think of hot pazhampori.
It was not my favourite snack when I was still in Kerala. I used to have it once a while, when vada was not available.
Parippu vada is another favourite anytime snack along with tea.
In 1990, I started my life as a non-resident Keralite and that took me away from my home town and pazhampori became a rare delicacy for the simple fact that you don't get the main component - plantain - outside the state freely.
So each journey to Trivandrum was with a longing for hogging on all such snacks.
So as soon as Kerala Express from New Delhi reaches Palakkad station in the morning, I would eagerly jump out to the platform to the calls of the vendors shouting "Pazhampori, vada'
Here goes the receipe

Ingredients

3 - Ripe plantains
1 cup - Rice flour
3 tbsp - Maida / all purpose flour
3 tbsp - Sugar
a pinch or two - Turmeric powder
a pinch - salt
oil to fry

Method

1) Peel the skin off the ripe plantain and cut into two parts. Then cut each part into 3- 4 slices, lengthwise.

2 )Mix rice powder, maida, sugar, turmeric powder and salt. Make a thick batter.

3) Heat oil in a deep frying pan. Dip the sliced plantains in the batter and deep fry till golden brown in colour.

Serve with evening tea.

Variation

With the sliced ripe plantain....Heat ghee or butter in a non-stick pan. Fry the slices on both side till light brown in colour.Drain and place on a serving plate. Sprinkle some sugar on the fried plantains and serve.

Have you ever had 'pothichoru'?

I have been travelling between Trivandrum and Bangalore every month from July mostly by Volvo buses, mostly, private-run, lately by the Karnataka State Transport Corporation.
The biggest problem I faced during my travel is food. the wayside restaurants that these buses stop for food are very expensive. I would have willingly paid had the food been good.
So on my return journey from Trivandrum I now insist my wife or mom to pack me dinner.
Oh! The aroma of home made rice, vegetable dishes and fish curry wrapped in a banana leaf is mouth water!
It packs in more than that.
It takes you on a nostalgic trip down memory lane. All these days when Amma packed lunches for you when you set out to school in the morning. When she packed lunch and dinner when you took a bus out on a school excursions; When you travelled to New Delhi in search of a career in a newspaper office in the early 1990s. And the dinner she packed when you shifted to Madras that is Chennai, later.
For each of us born and brought up in Kerala that pack of food brings back in a rush a train of memories.
You among readers who have not tasted it should try it at least once. The aroma is something unique!

Masala dosa

Masala Dosai (as they say it here in Bangalore) is my favourite anytime snack. The best ones I have had is in Chennai. Shops in T-Nagar serve the best I have tasted. The ones served in places in Bangalore do not measure up to those served even in places in Trivandrum.
Come to think of it,they say some restaurant here claims that it invented the Masala Dosa.

I hear that Thiru “Dosa Man” Kumar from NY Dosas Washington Square South and Sullivan Street Sri-Lankan style vegan fare won the 2007 Vendy Award. (An intense cook-off between the best sidewalks chefs in New York City. A festival of respect and gratitude for all vendors and everything they provide us-from your morning coffee (half-and-half, two sugars) to the $2 umbrella when you get caught in the thunderstorm.) Then it must be some Dosas and idlis.
The citation says "Thiru makes super fresh Indian food– mixed in with his own influences from Sri Lanka. All under the constraints and philosophy of veganism. He’s always exceptionally nice and professional. Everyone knows that if money is scarce, you can get a meal from him and pay later. He’s a great guy, humanitarian and environmentalist all while being one of the most legit chefs in the city. And his food is cheap.

New city, new food joints

Hey, not exactly. I am in this city for the past four months and am yet to discover a great place to write about. The only happening place I checked out was South Indies, which is a vegetarian outlet and a great one at that.
Church Street, I am told, has the greatest spread of food this side of the Vindyas but they don't quite suit my pocket. Well, not yet!
Written that I should say, the first thing I would love to check out here is sushi. I have heard about couple of places but yet to check them out.
Of course I checked out a couple of places near ITPL but they were quite a disappointment.
Let me post here when I have something more to write.
For now, it is Jai's (he is my roommate)great Sambhar I am addicted to.
Meanwhile check this out:
So-much-food-for-thought