I have been hearing good reviews about this place called Imperial Kitchen in Trivandrum… Managed to finally visit there thanks to some of my friends / colleagues with whom I went there on a work day for lunch… This is the restaurant whose decor, I think is the closest to the Mandarin Trail restaurant that I keep referring to…
Unfortunately in the middle of all the chaos, I was not able to take any pics and so, all the pics included here are from my second visit to the place… Imperial Kitchen calls itself an international restaurant and its perfectly reflected in their menu which has quite a bit of selections from across the globe, from our local Kerala style meals and Hyderabadi biriyani to classic fish n chips to Arabic grills, Lebanese to pastas and pizzas to steaks to Chinese, Thai and even Indonesian options… It is indeed a huge menu which takes quite a while to go thru and choose 🙂
Like I said before, in the first visit, I couldn’t take pics of the food… Plus, I didn’t explore the menu much and so went with my friends suggested which was to try their Indonesian Prawns Soup and their Fish Curry Meals… Also I got to try their Arabic Grilled Pomfret… All of them were really good and amazing, which is what prompted the second visit in just under a week when I ended up going out… So, here goes:
Those who know me personally are well aware that I love soups and would always order one whenever I goto a restaurant that has it in their menu… Also, I prefer clear, thin and lite soups to any of the thick and creamy ones… This is why I tried the Indonesian Prawns soup as that was the only clear option in the non-veg soups list… Since I loved it the first time, I went for it again…
The soup is a crystal clear soup with a bunch of vegetables like cabbage, lemongrass(which is what dominates the taste), garlic, green onion, babycorn, mushrooms and then about half a handful of small prawns and topped with some Chinese coriander and mint, all seasoned with some salt and pepper and served boiling hot…
For mains, I was in the mood for some noodles and chose something I have never had before but only seen it in Anthony Bourdain’s and Gordon Ramsay’s TV show: Pad Thai…
They serve two variants of Pad Thai namely Chicken and Sea Food and I chose the Sea Food version… Pad Thai is the most famous noodle dish from Thailand, which is also known as the ambassador of Thai cuisine… Its made up of flat rice noodles stir-fried with tamarind pulp, fish sauce, mushrooms, shrimps, squid, fish, babycorn, spring onion, coriander, garlic and peanuts and served with a slice of fresh lime… Personally I found that the lime is a necessary ingredient here and that it tastes better when the lime juice is squeezed on top of the noodles and mixed before eating this… Also, for me personally, this doesn’t require any condiments…
In addition to Pad Thai, since I loved the Arabic grilled fish so much last time, I had to try it again… However, this time, instead of the fish, I went for Tiger Prawns…
The way they serve the grilled sea food is that when you order, they take you to their counter and show you the various fresh sea food that they have for the day and you get to choose which one(s) they will cook for you and how, among the list of spice rub options… I went for the Arabic option as I said before, which I was told is a Chermoula spice rub and the above pic shows the result… The grilled tiger prawns were served with some freshly sliced onions and some pickled beetroot on the plate as can be seen…
The prawns were incredibly tender and juicy… My only problem though is that they didn’t remove the shell completely, which made eating it slightly inconvenient especially since I use a fork and spoon to eat 🙂 Otherwise, its definitely the best grilled prawns I have ever had and so, I am looking forward to try it with any of the other spice rub options…
During my next visit, I decided to try from their Indian menu and went for their Chicken Makhanwale curry along with their classic chicken fried rice…
There is absolutely nothing special about this fried rice… Its the your regular chicken fried rice consisting of hakka stir-fried rice having some scrambled egg, and some vegetables like carrots and beats… I only ended up wishing that the chicken pieces in it were cooked a little bit more and the whole thing could use some more flavour and a bit more seasoning…
The Chicken Makhanwale was basically your classic Murgh Makhni or Butter Chicken, which is typically chicken marinated in a mixture of yogurt (preferably hung curd), cream and a spice mixture consisting of garam masala, garlic, lime, pepper, coriander, turmeric and chilly which is then cooked in a tandoor oven and then finished in a mildly spiced tomato based gravy that uses butter and spice mixture… Some places use cashew nut paste as a thickener for this… The dish is typically garnished with some butter, cream and/or boiled egg and topped with come coriander and dried fenugreek leaves as well…
This dish was sadly slightly disappointing as I have had better tasting versions of this from other places… Then, for dessert, I had their Fried Ice Cream…
Unfortunately this doesn’t look even remotely as how they advertise… Its basically a scoop of vanilla ice cream coated in a thick batter having a lot of corn flakes and flash fried till golden brown and topped with some chocolate sauce… The outer coating tasted slightly salty which I guess gives a contrast when eaten with the ice cream inside and the chocolate sauce… Personally I didn’t like it cause I felt that batter coating was too thick…
Anyways, the restaurant has kept their word of being an international restaurant and I can tell you that all the non-indian dishes I had were simply awesome and I’m really looking forward to my next visit to try more of the exotic dishes in their menu…
