Authentic Kerala cuisines is one of those cuisines you hear and eat less of in Gurgaon.
There a few good restaurants in Delhi but being an admirer of the food I jumped onto sample authentic Kerala food at the ongoing food festival at Hilton Garden Inn, Gurgaon.
The menu changes everyday and the chefs from have been specially flown in from Trivandrum to represent Kerala. It is an extensive menu that brings food from all regions of Kerala. There is Malabari food, Syrian Christian food and of course Brahmin vegetarian food as well.
The hotel has stopped at nothing to bring the backwaters to us including a hand built canoe bang in the middle of the diner room, kudos.
I gleefully ate a lot that day and each dish, without fail was stupendous. The flavours , measles were all authentic and you could make it out with each morsel. I loved the pickles and Kerala has genuinely taken pickling to an art form.
The shrimp and tenderloin pickle was my favourite and I was told that gents down south find this a great accompaniment with drinks. Do not miss the range of pickles , its huge and tasty.
One of my favourite dishes was the mutton peralan. The dry mutton dish that heavenly combined coconut with the full bodied spices of Kerala. The balance that they brought together was something I can go back for again.
From the Syrian Christian community was a chicken roast which was again spicy and delicious to have. Among the veg food I loved the Ulli they’ll, which was a shallot gravy and shallots in this tamarind coconut based gravy paired so well together. It was mild, tangy, sweet, spicy all at the same time.
For all those worried, there were appams and malabar parrots of course to go with all this. To my surprise there were some wonderful desserts as well especially the elaner payasam. tender coconut or leaner was liberally used and the flavour it brought made this one of the best kheer I’ve had.
To sum it up the festival is worthwhile to try out for the range and quality of dishes it has. It is so authentic that you might just check if there are backwaters nearby.
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