Tender coconuts are sold throughout Mangalore, but none of them are quite like the ones sold by M.S. Kamath at his humble shop at Dongerkery near Canara School.
He sells the regular tender coconuts with an addition of his own, after you drink the coconut water he cracks open the coconut and serves the coconut flesh ( malayi in Hindi) with some bananas, ice cream and some crush.
When asked about how he developed this idea, he says, “I just wanted to try to serve the normal coconut in a different way.”
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The coconut ice cream is priced at Rs. 45 apiece and his shop is one of the very few open till 11.30 p.m.
“I stay open as long as there are customers but (usually) close the shop at 11.30 p.m.”
Rukshar Farhan, a homemaker and a first time visitor, says: “I’ve never had anything like this before.”
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The shop is popular among the youth looking to try something different and searching for food after most shops in Mangalore are shut.
Mohammed Javed, who visited for the first time with his friends, says, “It was something new and different, the quality of the tender coconuts is also very good.”
Mr. Kamath provides different flavours in his ice cream such as strawberry and litchi.
Abdul Fathah, a regular, says he was “surprised” to find ice cream with the coconut when he first tried it and says he’d never imagined something so “unique” is available in Mangalore for so long and he hadn’t even heard of it until recently.
Mr. Kamath, who is in the business for the last 35 years, is also a very “interesting” person to talk to according to Mohammed Javed.
Mr. Kamath, 59, can also fluently speak several languages, including Kannada, Hindi, English, Malayalam and Tulu. He entertains the waiting customers by telling them about his past and it is for the customer to believe it or take it as joke.