The Kick Off - Kozhikodan Travellouge!

We started off to Kozhikode from Aluva railway station on a rainy sunrise of September.

With all the malabar dishes prioritized we decided to have a quite breakfast from the Aryas hotel nearby aluva railway station.The masala dosas were ok to hold us till Kozhikode but were nothing special to gaa gaa about.

 

The Typical Aryas Masala Dosa!

 
The temptation for the travel was too hard to resist with names of the giants of Malabar taste reckoning us since the days our taste buds had started dominating us on the food habits.

The mere thought of names like Paragon,Bombay hotel and Zains sent out visual images to our organic silver screen,that urged us to put these hypes to a test.Reached Kozhikode around 10am and decided to walk out of the railway station to paragon so as to create maximum void spaces in our bellies.The idea was not to have the paragon biriyani so early and to taste the other delicacies and to parcel it to finally have it on the return train.

Scene 1: The paragon hotel

Not a hifi hotel in looks as the hype might misleadingly portray. Yellowishly lit up limted space,paragon has the typical look of a hotel which had survived several eras relishing generations.Somebody came to the table to serve us and to much of our surprise and dissappoinment ,most of the items we had travelled for was unknown to the 'non mallu guy'. As per him,items like kallumekka,irachi pathiri etc were never served there!However he urged us to have the Biriyani and was just the push we required to go for it. We decided to start off with appam Chicken stew and meen mulakilittathu to keep us engaged,as biriyani was only just about getting ready.

Appam- meen mulakilittath,Chicken stew

                             

Appam- meen mulakilittathu was as tasty as the visuals look above.Chicken stew was just about OK.The biggest disappointment was the Biriyani,which by hype was expected to give us a taste that was never experienced before. But it went in like just another biriyani.

Sweet:

Common mans hotel.

Common mans Rates.

Crispy Tasty Appam.

Walkable from railway station.

Bitter:

A bit congested.

Biriyani wasn't as anywhere near to the Hype we had heard about.

Not much of malabar special delicacies were served.

Verdict: Well...... Did not give the kind of kick start we expected!

Rating 2.5/5

The heat of the spicy fish mulakilittathu began to take toll during our walk past paragon and we deiced to cool off with the Milk Sarbath ,which again was yet another Kozhikodan special drink.

   Milk Sarbeth

Made of Milk poured into a special mix of Sarbath, the drinks taste was fresh, nothing experienced before. Can be tried if you happen to travel near paragon hotel!

Scene 2: Around 2PM we decided to move on to the next biggie...The Bombay hotel....It was with dismay that we received the news from a pedestrian in front of the hotel that it has been shut down for the Ramsan holidays! We decided to move on to some hotel that would serve some good sea food...kallumekka was still there top in our prioity list.A Friendly auto driver tried to help us,as he dropped us to a hotel that was a bit far from the city,but again the attempt went in vain as we had to please ourselves with prawns fry,Karimeen Fish Molly and Neychoru. Taste was nothing distinguished! Sorry to say that we dont recollect the name of the hotel.

    Neychoru,Fish molly and Prawns Fry

Verdict: Ordinary!

Rating : 1.5/5

 Something apart from food we should mention here is the attitude of auto drivers in Kozhikode. We had never seen such amicable attitudes from auto drivers anywhere else we had travelled so far. Kudos to the way they treat your travel concerns.

Scene 3 : Kozhikode Beach

The sun had started to show some charity on his hot spell. There were only a few hours remaining for us to make the travel back.We were yet to taste the delicacies that we traveled for .An information from one of my colleague led us to the beach, where as per him,kallumekka would be available. The beach gave us a sigh of relief not only just because of the deep blue elegance,but also of the four wheeled carts which sold chat items including,kallumekka fry.Desperate,we gave in for the freshly fried ones in the glass box.The taste was baffling! Still we had another plate,as this was the kind of  stuff that we traveled for. In fact we went ahead and ordered another chat item, which had green peas and eggs scrambled together. That wasn’t great either.

Green Peas With Eggs Scrambled,Kallumekka

                             

Scene 4 : The Zains Hotel

Walking back to the railway station,we knew that the trip wasn't quite there.On the way a a roadside board read .... Kallumekka,meen pathiri,irachi pathiri,Mutta maala,kaayada etc....available here. The guy in the shop just smiled and said that the board was just outdated.....but then he recalled that these items were available in Zains hotel. The spark of hope galloped us to our last try....the Zains hotel.

Aesthetically projected,the hotel looked pretty loyal to the Kozhikodan legacy. A glass box with many distinctive dishes welcomed us to much of our delight.Almost a plate of each were ordered that the guy who served us gave bit of an astonished look!Kaypola,Kayada,Chatti pathiri,irachi pathiri,Kallumekka fry,Muttamaala.......filled the table space....! These were too tasty that we managed to gulp them despite the severely filled tummy!

Chatti Pathiri

Irachi Pathiri

Pazham Fry,Unnakkaya,Kallumekka,Muttamaala

              

Sweet:

Malabar dishes galore here.

Though not Royal, the Hotel looked Splendid in its place!

Not much congestion, Tables are arranged with lot of space to move about!

The taste lived up to the hype surrounding Zainu thaatha,who was quite busy being both the cashier and the Main chef at the same time....!

Negatives:

It took quite a bit of time for somebody to attend us. Though all the items we ordered were ready in the glass box ,took some time reaching our table!

Verdict: Must Visit Hotel for Malabar dishes. Definitely made our trip worth it!

Rating 3.5/5

By around 7 we were in an Ernakulum Limited stop bus, with heavy, confused tummies! :)