Recently we went to Kumarakom in Velacherry to see how it is. We ordered few dishes. We ordered Mutton, Chicken and Egg Briyani. As side we ordered Prawn fry, Policha Meen, and Chicken 65. So how was it? Read on …..

Kumarakom positions itself as a Kerala restaurant, and it has got lot of decorations in it to reflect Kerala spirit, the hotel looks neat and just like any restaurant in Chennai, its tables were small. We had to constantly move plates and other dishes to accommodate the side dish.

Its serving of briyani is weird. Biyani no matter what type you eat, is served with an appalam, lemon pickle and raita. Hmmm thats weird to me. But those side dishes goes well with Briyani, except for the raita which was not upto the mark, its curd was very bad quality.

The briyani is served with meat or eggs cooked in thick gravy that goes to the bottom of the bown and the rice tops it. One needs to mix it well to have it. The chicken briyani was okay, but the mutton is mutton briyani tasted well but was not cooked soft. You have to bite and pull it hard with your teeth to tear it to sizable pieces to eat. Usually briyani is cooked in such a way that the meat in it is soft and so one can piece it with hand mix it with rice and eat it, here thats not the case. And mind you this is a high priced restaurant.

We were amazed that there was no Kushka, and let me explain why. When you eat chicken briyani, the rice must have chicken flavor, when you eat mutton briyani the rice must have absorbed the mutton flavor, and similarly for egg too. Here in Kumarakom, nope we did not get such flavor. Looks like Kumarakom is cooking chicken, mutton and egg with a thick paste and thats been put in the bottom of the bowl and topped with cooked rice. the same rice tops what ever paste is added to the bowl. Well thats not briyani! Thats cheating.

Now coming to the prawn fry, there were more dry seeds, and masala and other seasoning and garnish in the plate than prawns. The size of the prawn too was tiny and it wasn’t that good. The prawn did not have prawn flavor. Possibly it was stored for a long time.

The policha meen, i.e the fish cooked inside bannana leaf was ok, it was tender, the masala had soaked well into the outer layers of the fish and was crispy, and the inner layers were tender. But if you are looking for the fish flavor hmmmm… no you did not really get it. It was bad in that respect. The fish had a sour tasting masala coated on top of it, which tasted well.

Finally coming to Chicken 65. It was just like any other chicken 65, red in color, boneless but was cooked well and soft. Well billing itself as hifi restaurant, is it good to add such coloring? You decide.

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