India (Frommer's, 4th Edition) - Keith Bain [209]
For pit stops during the day while wandering around Fort Kochi, there are now a handful of good options: Kashi Art Café (Burgher St.; 0484/221-5769;http://kashiartcafe.com), located in a restored Dutch heritage house, is a novel cafe-cum-art-gallery with tables and benches made out of coconut trunks. It serves hot and cold beverages with cakes or sandwiches (with real, hearty bread). Kashi’s owners have also started a tiny eatery in their own home—the clever concept has neighborhood housewives preparing their personal specialties, so there are just a handful of items offered. The place is called Shala and it’s only open for dinner (5:30–9:30pm); because it’s so small we suggest you call ahead to book a table and to hear what’s on today’s menu ( 0484/221-6036).
Another pretty little cafe-style venue is Tea Pot (Peter Celli St.; 0484/221-8035; tpleaz@hotmail.com), run by Sanjai, a laid-back hippie type. Order the appam with vegetable stew (chopped vegetables in a very mild coconut base; Rs 100) and a ginger lime soda (or one of more than 30 teas), then settle down with a good book or a garrulous partner—the food takes awhile to get there, but it’s almost always worth the wait. Also joining the lineup of cafes, is the quiet, compact little back veranda and tree-shaded garden at CGH Earth’s new contemporary art gallery, David Hall , where you can order light Indian meals, sandwiches, salads, and morish cakes and cookies; you’ll find it opposite the Parade Ground, near St. Francis Church (Church Rd., Fort Kochi; 98-470-6325; www.davidhall.in; daily 11am–7pm).
Traditional Keralite Feasts
If you’re invited, don’t pass up the opportunity to enjoy a traditional sadhya feast while in Kerala. In truth, even the simplest breakfast meal is a feast in Kerala, so forgo the eggs and toast and order whatever’s going. The most well-known feast food is of course the dosa, a crispy thin pancake, or the idly (also spelled iddly or idli), a small compressed rice and lentil wedge—both are served with sambar (a vegetable and lentil gravy) and various chutneys (coconut, mint, peanut, tomato, and chili). The famous “masala dosa” is when the pancake is stuffed with a spicy potato dish. Also delicious is puttu, a fine rice powder and grated coconut “cylinder,” which is often served with baked banana and mildly spicy chickpea stew. Or there’s the steamed rice pancake known as appam, served with vegetable “stew” (chopped vegetables and cashews in coconut milk). At traditional feasts, expect rice and ghee (clarified butter), served with various stews and curries like sambar, rasam, kootu, pacchadi, appalam, and payasam, all of which will be heaped endlessly upon your ela (leaf). Seafood in Kerala is exquisite and plentiful. A popular dish is meen moilee, a delicate fish curry tempered with fresh coconut milk (chemeen, incidentally, means “prawns”). Coconut is a staple used in many dishes: Avial is a mixed-vegetable “dry” curry prepared with coconut, cumin, and turmeric; and aadu olathiyathu is a coconut-based curry made with cubes of fried mutton.
Fort Cochin SEAFOOD Considered one of Kerala’s best seafood restaurants, this casual catch-of-the-day semi-alfresco pad—located in the low-key Casino Hotel—is something of a Kerala institution. The atmosphere is rustic: Tables are set around a huge banyan tree and the menu is scrawled on a blackboard. Choose from a range of freshly caught seafood displayed on a cart that makes its way from table to table, and decide how you would like it prepared—grilled whole with heaps of spices, or delicately sliced with subtle herbs; the obliging maitre d’ will help you make up your mind and then your choice will be prepared at an open grill in full view of the curious Chinese carp