WAITERS dressed in traditional Malabari style greet customers at the Regency restaurant at Abad Plaza on MG Road. As we settled down corporate chef K K Nair explained that they had brought in three chefs - Kabir, Rahmat and Sahir - from Kozhikode exclusively for the Mopla food festival.
Kabir is famous for his dum biryani and is nicknamed ‘Biryani Kabir’ in his home town. This is his second visit to Abad and he is a regular at some of the five star hotels in the city. Kabir is assisted by Rahmat and Sahir. Kabir explained to us the ingredients, why we should stick to the original names of each dish without Anglicising them and the difference between Kozhikode biryani and Thalassery biryani. For the weeklong festival Kabir and his team are preparing about 85 dishes. Every two days the menu will change. “We prepare 15 dishes for the buffet daily,” says Nair.
After a sweet ginger-lime welcome drink we headed to the buffet table. The soup for the day was mutton and ‘pachacurry’ soup. We chose the non-veg one. It was a mild soup and prepared our taste buds for what was to come. For the main course we had fish dry fry, chemmeen masala, Thalassery mutton kurma and beef chilly varattiyathu with pathiri and Malabari paratha.
We loved them, especially the chemmeen masala and beef chilly varattiyathu. Then we tucked into ‘kozhi’ biryani. Kabir insisted that it should not be called chicken biryani as that takes away the very essence of the dish. It was absolutely delicious and is a must try. For the vegetarians there was cherupayar curry, vendakka mulagu charu, cauliflower dry fry, manga muringaka curry and thoran. From the live kitchen you could taste appam and puttu. Pathiri, neichoru, Kerala rice and plain rice are also offered.
We wrapped up a most fulfilling meal with a variety of desserts.
Chef Rahmat’s mutta mala was the exotic dessert for the day. We had pazham nirachathu, thari pola, halwa and rice payasam. There were run-of-the-mill bakery desserts like chocolate cake, fruit salad and ice-cream too. Planning to visit the festival on Tuesday or Wednesday? Then you can taste exotic delicacies like chemmeen soup, kadukka varattiyathu and Malabar ‘aadu’ biryani. The buffet is priced at Rs 350. Drop in between 7 pm and 11 pm before Monday.
kochi@epmltd.com