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!