KOCHI: One day when Murali Karthik, founder of the food group, Eat Kochi Eat (EKE), put up a picture of dosa on Instagram, chef Gaggan Anand sent him a message, ‘I hate you. I am so dosa hungry.’
Murali replied, asking him to come straight to Kochi. “Will get you the best dosa and maybe some puttu with egg curry also,” he said.
Thailand-based Gagan, the first Indian chef to be featured on the Netflix show, ‘Chef’s Table’, won a Michelin Two-star and was voted Asia’s No 1 chef in The World’s Best Fifty. “He likes Kerala cuisine a lot,” says Karthik.
Gagan wasn’t the only one who benefited from Karthik’s affinity for flavours. Many people now like Eat Kochi Eat, an online platform that speaks about Kochi and its distinct cuisines. It recently crossed three lakh followers on Facebook and Instagram. “It has been very gratifying,” says Karthik, who started the group on September 15, 2015.
“I am a foodie and was looking for like-minded people to discuss it with,” he says. Karthik’s group now has college students, couples, career professionals, elderly population—all united by the love for good food. “When it comes to food, people forget their differences and have animated discussions,” says Karthik. “I realised there is some magic in food,” he says, adding that the group has conducted 35 meetups in the past four years.
A recent ticketed event during Diwali gathered about 45 people during an afternoon at Bikash Babu Sweets, near the Kathrikadavu railway overbridge. “We told the participants they could eat whatever they wanted,” says Karthik. And they did. The bill, for such events, usually comes with a 20 per cent discount. But this time, the participants were in for a surprise when Owner Amit Sarkar gave away the savouries for free.
The group has also gone on road trips to Kottayam, Palakkad, Thalassery, Kozhikode, and Coimbatore, where, they covered 12 restaurants. “We had two breakfasts, two lunches, and three dinners,” says Karthik.
Meanwhile, a lot of material is put up online, vetted by a small team. “We try to encourage positive reviews,” he says. “But if they are constructive negative reviews, we put those up too. We came to know of people who went to restaurants and said they would put up a negative review in EKE, but would not do so if they got a discount. We are careful about negative statements. I tell members, ‘Please put up information which is helpful.”
Asked about the future, he says, “Today we are the largest foodie group in Kerala. We want to maintain that position.”