KOCHI: With tomato prices showing no signs of coming down, several hotels and restaurants across the state have knocked tomato dishes off their menu. The eateries removed dishes like tomato curry, tomato oothappam, tomato rice, and tomato salads from the menu after retail prices continued to hover in the Rs 135 and Rs 150 per kg range.
Though tomato prices dropped to Rs 99 per kg in Kochi on Tuesday, bringing small relief to households and hotels, the latter have decided to keep the dishes off the menu for now. “Since ours is a vegetarian hotel, tomato oothappam, tomato rice, and tomato curry have several takers and many enquire about them. However, we have been forced to stop making them as 1kg of tomato is still pricey. If we sell them, we will have to face huge losses. Increasing the prices of the dishes may not be viable,” said Sreenivasan J, owner of Anandas, a vegetarian hotel near Kaloor in Kochi.
Vinod, owner of Thripthi Foods in Edappally, said they will resume serving tomato dishes once prices come down to Rs 30. “Our tomato curry, priced at Rs 65, had the most takers. However, we have removed it now. We took a similar action a few years ago when onion prices went beyond Rs 100 per kg,” he said.
Kochannan Sahib restaurant at Karamana in Thiruvananthapuram, which specialises in mutton dishes, has stopped selling tomato curry. “We continue to add tomatoes to biriyani due to the huge demand for mutton biriyani. However, we have stopped serving dishes like tomato curry. Prices of other vegetables are also on the rise,” said Safeer P, owner. Some hotels substituted tomatoes with onions in oothappam.
“Earlier, we used to add tomatoes, onion, and carrot to make oothappam. We have removed tomatoes now and started using onions, which cost Rs 25 per kg,” said the manager of a hotel, requesting anonymity. However, some restaurants have decided to brave the price rise as they do not want to compromise on the menu.
“Though the price of some vegetables went up, we didn’t make any changes. We are still buying the same quantity of tomatoes that we used to earlier,” said Aswin, staff of Paragon Restaurant in Kozhikode, which was ranked 11th globally on the ‘Most Legendary Restaurants’ list of a travel portal.
Meanwhile, T J Manoharan, Ernakulam president of Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Association (KHRA), predicted adverse effect of the price hike on Onam festivities. “Not just tomatoes, but prices of ginger, yam, chilli, carrot, and several other items have gone up drastically. Hotels register nearly 30-35% of total business in a year during Onam. This time, we are worried. We have approached the state government seeking their intervention and thereby, reduce vegetable prices,” Manoharan said.