Punjabi Dhaba in Broadway is jam-packed at lunch-time. The crowd is a medley of non-Malayalis and Malayalis. Plates of piping hot aloo parathas , topped with a dollop of butter, follow each other out of the kitchen often accompanied by a glass of chilled lassi . At the Goli Vada Pav franchise on Salim Rajan Road, students and regulars queue up for vada pav . Specialty North Indian restaurant Dal Roti in Fort Kochi has become something of a must-go place. Established Udupi food restaurants such as Gokul Oottupura have incorporated chaat s and other snacks into their menu. PVR Cinemas at Lulu Mall has a counter dedicated to chaats, bhel and frankies aka kathi roll. The choice of North Indian food available in the city now extends beyond naan , paneer butter masala and chana bhatura .
Jacob Ninan, one of the franchisees for Goli Vada Pav (Salim Rajan Road) says, “The mindset of the people is changing, especially in Kochi. There is a different kind of eating out trend in the city – there are so many specialty restaurants here. People are willing to try out new tastes.” His outlet is more than six months-old and gaining fans. Goli Vada Pav has around six franchises in the city.
Entrepreneur Bunty Singh recently opened ‘Sethi da dhaba’, a specialty Punjabi eatery (currently a take-away) which serves authentic Punjabi food – the tandoori and butter chicken variety. His primary focus is the growing North Indian community and the discerning Malayali who has travelled and knows rajma from dal makhani .
“One factor that draws me to North Indian food is that it is an explosion of different flavours in my palate. The oil, the mint leaves, the flavours and I generally find the food milder,” says avid foodie and marketing communications (marcomm) specialist Krishnan Menon.
Once upon a time the North Indian would have been the focus of such eateries. To some extent the burgeoning North Indian population is still a focus, but it today accommodates the Malayali too. Ramesh Menon set up his North Indian specialty restaurant in Fort Kochi with his eye on two primary customer bases – the Naval base and the telecom sector. The ‘naariyal’ (coconut) and the ‘curry patta’ (curry leaf) in food locally available were the primary ‘offenders’.
Today, eight years later, he says, “Over the years I do get North Indians but 70 per cent of my local client base is Malayali.” Dal Roti’s kathi roll is a must have on the itinerary of many out-of-towners and locals.
Generational change
Ramesh attributes this shift in attitudes to, apart from the city’s inherent cosmopolitanism, a ‘generational change’. “A whole generation went out of Kerala to study and assimilated new flavours, which once they returned they wanted to keep in touch with. The kids bring their parents to my place.”
Another factor, according to him, is the comfort with the shift of flavours. The familiarity of Indian flavours as opposed to the anxiety of something foreign. But there is a catch, as Ramesh puts it, “make the restaurant pure vegetarian and it fails. That said vegetarian North Indian food is superior to the non-vegetarian.”
Therein lies the irony. While on the one hand where eating-out is incomplete without meat, there is a section of the population that prefers North Indian food for this very reason – that it is predominantly vegetarian. J. Latha regularly buys vada pav as snack for her children. “It is like a burger, yet it is different and the taste is very different and refreshing. I am not a huge fan but I don’t mind it.” Many consider these foods value for money.
Punjabi Dhaba, since 1969, has been serving vegetarian Punjabi food. The number of Malayalis visiting has increased over the last decade says Pappu Dhupar of the Dhaba. “Our Malayali customers have increased; people are interested in vegetarian food.” Aloo paratha with butter and lassi is a must-try and popular combination for the Malayali patron, he adds.
There are two categories here – the meal (the aloo paratha, methi aloo and palak paneer kind of place) and the snack place or the street food place. Snacks comprise eats such as chaat, bhel puri, sev puri, dahi puri, samosa chaat, pani puri and others have dedicated followers. The Yadav Bhelpuri pushcarts have become part of our landscape. Low cost (suited to student budgets) these have their dedicated followers. “I like chaat because it is crisp and crunchy. And I can see how it is being made and can, to some extent, exercise control over the spices,” Krishnan says.
Veena Ramesh, a banker, is partial to pav bhaji, bhel puri and dahi puri . Like Krishnan she too likes the foreignness of the taste, “the masala or the spices are very different from what we have normally and that is what I like. I am a vegetarian and it is a change from routine. And can be had any time of the day.”
However, there are also people like Veena’s husband, Ramesh Balachandran, who don’t like North Indian fare. “I don’t eat it at all because I don’t enjoy the taste – the masala and I hate potatoes.” But it looks like vada-pav, aloo paratha and dahi puri have joined masala dosa, pazham pori and thayir vada .
