After close to two decades, Sukil Ram left the corporate world and nosedived into the culinary one to embrace his passion for cooking. “When I decided to start my own business, there were no second thoughts. Even at a young age, I was thrust into a situation where I had to cook for myself and other members in the family,” he says.
Even as he slogged away for hours on end at his cubicle at an IT firm in the city, Sukil says his heart was in the kitchen. “Deadline pressure, graveyard shifts and often unimaginative work... that became the norm. It was also taking a toll on my health. Amidst all this, cooking has always been a stress-buster for me,” he says.
Sukil then started his own Facebook page, Ram’s Kitchen, and a blog where he would put up photos and stories of his culinary experiments during weekends just for the heck of it. His confidence was further boosted when he started grabbing prizes at in-house cooking contests, eventually even entering cookery shows on television.
Realising that it was now or never and with encouragement and “some helping hand” from his techie friends, Sukil launched Poomaram — Ram’s Kitchen: A Shade of Traditional Flavours in January last year with a focus on naadan dishes. “As the name signifies, the concept I had in my mind is the image of sharing traditional food while sitting under a shade tree,” he explains with a laugh. “The enterprise was, of course, a big risk, especially since I was putting all my eggs in one basket. But I simply had to go with my instinct,” he recollects.
Located near Akkulam off the Kazhakuttam highway, Poomaram’s décor and unfussy artwork, which in effect works as an extension of its menu, pretty much attest to the core theme. So does the cutlery, with clay pots and bharanis (ceramic jars) containing dishes adorning the tables under hanging halogen bulbs done in ‘coir wires’. “I was adamant about not giving a name directly related to food in order to bring in novelty. After short-listing quite a few, ‘Poomaram’ struck me as both catchy and meaningful,” he adds.
- Apart from “a kind of sadya” that comes with a payasam, the highlights for lunch are bamboo chicken biriyani, prawns kizhi biriyani, pothichoru and a range of roasts and seafood dishes, including the coveted karimeen, both fry and pollichathu. “We keep rotating the type of pickles and payasam daily,” says Sukil. For bamboo biriyani, rice and meat are prepared using the dum method and then optimally steamed in large bamboo stems.
- At night, it’s a plethora of traditional items such as appam, chappathi, porotta, pathiri and so on while kizhi porotta and erachi puttu steamed in bamboo add a dash of difference. Another speciality is ‘barrel barbecue’ that comes in various preparations of fish, chicken and beef that opens from 7 pm. “For the first three months, we had only meals before other items were introduced,” he says.
Sukil is a bundle of energy as he explains the various ingredients that goes into the thodu curries and pickles laid out on the plantain leaf as part of Poomaram’s daily sadya. “My native place is Karunagappally (in Kollam). I wanted to lend my sadya a Karunagappally twist. Curd is often used as the base in some curries in the sadya there,” says Sukil, an MCA graduate. Sukil says he decides the ingredients and preparation methods for his dishes himself, lending a helping hand at Poomaram’s kitchen occasionally.
The 45-year-old says he was initially helped by word of mouth among his techie friends and on social media, with Technopark not far away from Poomaram. “The support I have received from techies has been overwhelming,” he says. “I hope my journey will also serve as an inspiration for others to follow their passion.”
