With only a couple exceptions, we enjoyed the food in Kerala just about everywhere we ate, from the upscale city restaurants to the home style meals prepared for us by the wife of the caretaker at Sri Villas in Palakkad.
As with our previous trip to India, we were extremely impressed with the quality and variety of vegetarian dishes in Kerala. When we compare meals in good Indian restaurants in the U.S. to what we had in Kerala, that is the most obvious difference.
One feature of Kerala cuisine is known as “Sadya”, the serving of unlimited portions of multiple traditional vegetarian foods on a banana leaf “plate”. We enjoyed Sadya meals all over Kerala.
There will be more written about other meals in Kerala on other pages but the highlights of the food we ate in Trivandrum follows.
Despite having a name that would seem to be more at home in Mexico than Kerala, the food at Villa Maya has a traditional local base (with modern touches) plus some international dishes from countries with a historical trade connection with Kerala like Italy and the Middle East. This is one of the more expensive restaurants when compared to others in town but worth it. Reservations are suggested.
The property was built in the 19th century as a home for a royal wife and offers comfortable seating both indoors and out. We ate there twice and were lucky to get one of the 3 outside cabanas the first night and a more traditional table in the garden by a small goldfish pool on the second.
Mira, Royal Detective is a Disney animated television series set in the 19th Century fictional Indian Kingdom of Jalpur that our young granddaughter just loves. After our first meal at Villa Maya, we excitedly told her that we had eaten dinner at Mira’s house. I would almost swear I heard music from the program soundtrack being played. The ambiance is hard to beat and a huge part of the experience.
The service and the food were also terrific both nights we ate there.
The Tender Coconut Broth served in a coconut, a signature dish was both unusual and delicious. We enjoyed the lentil fritters with 3 sauces (mint, apple and pineapple) on both nights. Other dishes we enjoyed were the Crispy Fried Prawns, Shrimp Curry also served in a coconut shell, a huge portion of Spicey Chicken “in Cream” (as described on the menu but really more a spicey tomato sauce than dairy), really good huge portion of Chicken kabob and Spicey Crab Masala that was full of flavor but required a lot of work to get to. Despite being stuffed, on our second night, we managed to enjoy a dish of coconut cream with brownie for dessert.
We enjoyed a very good all you can eat Kerala Sadya at Mothers Veg Plaza for lunch one day after touring a weaving village. We had to wait a short while for a seat in the crowded room but experienced great food and excellent service including lots of attention from the owner/manager. The various veg dishes were served in dollops on our banana leaf with lots of sweet and spicey sauces/condiments like pineapple, mango and salty pickles. For dessert we enjoyed a roasted banana with a condiment as suggested by server and Rice pudding with Jaggery. The meal was satisfying and very inexpensive.
On our first day in Trivandrum after successfully buying and installing a local sim card, which is not as easy as it sounds, we realized we were close to the Garden Grill, a place that was on a list of recommendations from our travel agent. So, being about lunch time, we decided to give it a try.
We didn’t realize till we got there that this was the house restaurant for the Hilton Garden Inn serving a mostly western menu but as long as we were already there, decided to stay.
The Club sandwich was OK but not great. The Ceaser salad was a bit mayonnaisee and also just OK. But we had a problem with the pizza. After a very looong delay we were informed that the kitchen was having an issue with an oven that wouldn’t get hot enough. Better communication would have probably helped but overall, this was probably our least satisfying meal on the entire trip.
We had breakfast every day and a couple other meals at Sothern Express, the Uday Suites restaurant. The service was great and the food was decent. Lunch and dinner was pretty standard buffet fare. Nothing stood out except for the Moong Dal Halwa dessert.
Dosa was our favorite part of breakfast. The buffet breakfast included “egg cooked to order” but I wish I could have given the chef a lesson in cooking eggs. You can read in more detail about a Club sandwich with Macaroni salad, egg salad and onion served at the Southern Express on the Uday Suites page.