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Jotaro's Food Review

BANANA LEAF FISH & SEAFOOD @ KERALA CAFE FORT KOCHI

Fort Kochi, Kerala, India - January 2015

We were on a holiday in Kerala, India and on our sixth day's tour we stopped by for lunch at the food court in Fort Kochi. Centrally located at the heritage area of the city, this food court is easily accessible from the many tourist sites.

There are many food stalls here and we went in to Kerala Cafe as they seemed friendly and honest. It's important to go to a honest operator. Even as I was taking the above photo, a couple of motor-taxi guys thought I wanted to take photos of their taxis and requested money for doing so. As tourists we just have to be careful at times and look out for people who take advantage.

A friendly waiter came to take our orders; soon, with gusto, they were preparing our seafood and grilling the spice-seasoned pomfrets on a hot plate.

Although the title of this blog is "Banana Leaf Fish", the fish are only wrapped in banana leaves after cooking. This is unlike the grilled fish in Malaysia where they are grilled together with the leaves.
Our fish came, looking good and nicely wrapped in banana leaf; the green of the leaf contrasting well with the red spicy fishing that peeping through.

Wow! Our unwrapped pomfret looked even better than when it was being grilled. It looked very spicy red, I do hope that it's only moderately spicy chilli hot as we had requested for our food not to be too chilli hot.

Like most sea-food in Kerala, the fish was indeed fresh; its meat tender and yet firm.
The grilling was done well, the skin was crispy and coated well with wet spices. The fish was seasoned but not for too long as the flesh of the fish itself had only a tinge of spicy taste. Just add the spicy paste coating to the amount of one's personal liking.

The Chilli Crabs came in a thick curry. The crab shell had been pre-cracked so that the curry has coated some of the fresh crab meat too.
A nice dish just nicely sweet too.

The fried Calamari/Squid was good too. My only complain about the food here is that the curry seems to be of the same style, perhaps they should offer some variety in their curry cooking or at least in the chilli paste they used. OR perhaps we did not order well. *smiles*

Some vegetables, in the form of Dahl, to balance off our meal. This one was not as thick as the many others that we had in Kerala.

To go with all the good curries we had some fried rice; this was fairly good only.,

The better rice we had was this Jeera Rice; its a simple rice flavoured with some spices and curry leaves. Goes very well with the curries.

To cool off and balance the "heatiness" of the spicy food, we had some lassi and pineapple juice. It was a very good meal at a place easily accessible from most of the central tourist spots of Fort Kochin.