Kings Restaurant – Fish Tikka, Prawns Biriyani, Monster Shake

It was a friend of mine who recommended that I try the King’s Restaurant at Kuravankonam, Trivandrum… The restaurant claims to be a Pan-Asian Fusion restaurant and so, during my first visit, I tried some Chinese options and it was a disappointment for me personally… Thats when I got the recommendation to go back and try the Indian part of the their menu, especially their Tandoori options and their Biriyanis… Hence, I went back and this post is about my second visit… The menu here consists of Indian, Chinese and Arabic options and hence the “Pan-Asian” 🙂 They have two dining rooms, one at ground level and another in the basement… I chose to sit at ground level…

So, this time, I was in the mood for some seafood this time and so, from the menu, I went for the Fish Tikka as a starter and Fish Biriyani as the mains… Then among the dessert options, the Monster Shake caught my eye as I have been reading about it a lot from Facebook… Among the various options, I went for the Pista version of it…

Both the Fish Tikka and the Prawns Biriyani were served together… So, as I was starting to eat, they also brought the Monster Shake as well and I was incredibly surprised at its size (thats pretty much 1 feet tall)… So, ended up taking both the Fish Tikka and the Prawns Biriyani as parcel and ended up having just the Monster Shake from the restaurant and the rest I had from home much later… 🙂

So, lets first talk about the Fish Tikka… This is basically marinated bite sized pieces of Fish (Indian Cobia), marinated in the spice mix known as the Tikka Masala and a Yogurt base and the pieces are then skewered and cooked in the Tandoor Oven… The end result when done right is that you get pieces that are very slightly crispy and charred on the outside, while the inside stays soft and moist while having absorbed all the flavours from the marinade… The Tikka is typically served with a portion of green salad and a Coriander – Mint Leaves Chutney (again yogurt based)…

There were 4 incredibly juicy pieces of Fish in the portion I got here… I must confess that I really loved this particular version of the Fish Tikka… Even when I had after reheating in the next day, it was still incredibly juicy and tasted really well… The Tikka Masala that used for this felt really great with the flavour of the yogurt cutting thru creating that perfect spicy and sour balance which got further elevated by the perfect seasoning as well… The accompanying salad felt quite fresh and crunchy and the Coriander-Mint Chutney, which was clearly made using yogurt, appeared to work with the Tikka Masala quite well… In addition  to being incredibly juicy, the pieces of Fish was incredibly delicate, with layers completely falling apart at the slightest touch… This is a Fish Tikka that I am looking forward to having again very soon… 🙂

Next up is the Prawns Biriyani… The waiter claimed that this Biriyani is a Malabari style Dum Biriyani with the small grain fragrant rice with the Prawns cooked with a lot of Onions, and Garam Masala… As a topping typically we add Onions, Cashews and Dried Grapes fried in Ghee… The Biriyani here is served with a Kachumber Raita, a Pappadam and a Spicy Lime Pickle…

First of all, I felt this is like the typical attempt of the Thalassery style Biriyani that we see a lot of these days, in Trivandrum… The rice felt ok, although I felt they could’ve gone with something more fragrant like the the one known as the “Gandhakashala” Rice… The way the Prawns appeared to have been prepared seemed fine, but it was a bit too sweet for my liking… I guess they forgot to balance that sweetness from the caramelised onions… So, all I could taste from that masala was the taste of Caramelised Onions and a subtle hint each of Cinnamon, Clove and Mace… So, clearly I felt the whole Biriyani to be quite under-seasoned and I felt that the rice didn’t quite absorb any of the Prawn masala flavours which makes me suspect if this was in-fact a Dum Biriyani at all or at-best, it wasn’t given enough time in the Dum this time… Another important component which I think is mandatory for any Malabari style Biriyani is the presence of Ghee in it… Unfortunately, I couldn’t detect any trace of ghee in it… The Raita and the Pickle were fine as much as we can expect them to be… So, overall it felt like a typical/average Biriyani with nothing that can be considered as exceptional…

Like I said before, I didn’t eat much of both the Biryani and the Fish Tikka (just enough to taste) at that time because of the arrival of the Monster Shake… The pics below clearly shows why I decided to have them pack the rest of the food for me… I am not sure if its possible to get the idea of the size from the pics below… At best, the guide to use would be that single Oreo cream biscuit on the top…

Monster shakes a new trend here in Trivandrum that has become quite popular and more and more restaurants are starting to have it in their menu… Essentially this is a thick MilkShake with a bunch of toppings… Its the amount of topping placed such that it towers above the jar thats the signature for a Monster Shake… There are a lot of places now who serve beverages in a jar like the one here… But they are all smaller than this one…

So, the version of Monster Shake that I went for was the Pista Monster Shake… Essentially this consists of a jar of thick Pista Milk Shake which is them topped with 3 scoops of Pista Ice Cream, Two Brownies, Two Plain Wafers and a Oreo cream biscuit all topped with Pista syrup and various kinds of Sprinkles… They serve this as shown in the pics below with an umbrella attached straw 🙂

First of all, it’s huge; so huge that in-spite of skipping the rest of the food as take away, I still couldn’t finish this whole thing and could only manage to have about 60% of it… I think this has to be taken as a meal on itself (if you skip your previous meal), otherwise, one of these is fit for two people… I remember recently seeing an ad from another place where they have a mega sundae which they say is targeted at couples only and not single customers as they will find it impossible to eat the whole thing… So, I think this one is designed for couples in mind, but I certainly wish they had given me a warning while I was placing the order… Anyways, now I know that if I want to have a Monster Shake from here for lunch, I’ll have to skip breakfast 🙂

Now coming to the taste, each and every component in this felt good… The part which I especially loved were the brownies, which in this case were Chocolate Fudge Brownies as they were simply awesome being incredibly flavourful and soft and perfectly moist… The Wafers add a crunchy and Crispy component which worked great with the ice cream… The ice cream and the milk shake was not too sweet, but was incredibly rich with a good presence of the Pista flavour… I only have two complaints regarding this: 1) I wish the amount of Ice in the milkshake could’ve been lesser… Its usually a cheap trick played by shops where they use Ice and blend it with frozen milk and the flavourings to make the Milkshakes seem thick… I am not a fan of that… 2) I really don’t understand why people put those sugar sprinkles especially the mustard sized hard sprinkles as they especially are a pain to have as they are hard and tough to chew into… Even if you manage to chew, it will stick to your teeth, especially the grooves on the molars which makes it much more difficult to get rid of while being a big cavity risk… I really wish those hard ones were not present…

So, on the overall, it was a promising meal(s) I had had from the Kings Restaurant… The issues I mentioned above are not what I rate as severe, but rather minor fine tuning kind of issues, which I hope can be and will be corrected very soon 🙂 Either ways, I’ll be back there for the Fish Tikka… Thats confirmed 😀 🙂