Today morning, I saw an ad by the Flamingo Inn saying they are doing Onasadya this time… Flamingo Inn is a hotel I have been hearing for quite sometime even from my parents who had visited there recently and told me that the food was good… So, today anyways, I had to go out and so decided to check the place out and hopefully try the Onasadya as well…
Apparently the place has two restaurants – namely the Purple Circuit and the Tikka Singh… Tikka Singh was closed and the Onasadya special was arranged in the Purple Circuit as one of their staff members informed me and so, I headed there… I was in indeed by the number of furniture arranged as it felt quite congested that I was finding it difficult to move thru them… Based on bookings, they seemed to have pre-arranged the Sadya platter on some tables… I found an vacant one and sat down… As the special for Onam, the Onasadya was the only option available which was fine for me as I did go there for the same today… 🙂 The sadya was served as shown in the pics below…
For those who may be unaware, the Sadya is a traditional feast of the people of Kerala which is an elaborate meal of rice and curries served on a banana leaf… The basic structure is same as any Kerala Style Rice Meal but scaled up to include more side-dishes and this is usually done to be included as part of a celebration as a sort of a treat to celebrate an occasion… In this case its the Onam festival and hence the term Onasadya as in Sadya made on the occasion of Onam… 🙂 So, as like any other Sadya, here also you have rice, pappadom, pickles, thoran, kootucurry, pachadi, aviyal, banana, plantain chips, a banana, sharkkaravaratty, payasams and like it is in case of the Sadyas from Travancore region, a boli as well…
First of all, the rice was the Chemba Rice and was cooked perfectly… The waiter asked me if I prefer the Parippu curry or Sambar to have on the rice and I went for the Parippu… Turns out that was mostly made using the green lentils and hence that greenish color to it… The Pappadom, Plantain Chips and the Sharkaravaratty were nice and crispy and the latter was not too sweet either… There were 3 kinds of pickles namely the Spicy Ginger one, White Lime and Gooseberry… All 3 of them provided the necessary kick of spice and sourness to the meal… There was 4 pachadis made using Bittergourd, Pineapple, Beetroot and Cucumber respectively and the thoran was made using cabbage… In addition to the Cabbage Thoran, there was also a mezhukkupuratty made using Chickpeas and Long Beans with Coconut pieces… Then of-course, there was the quintessential Aviyal thats a mandatory component of any Sadya, which is a coconut and yogurt / raw mango based curry that has an assortment of all kinds of local vegetables like carrots, plantain, drumstick, cucumber, bottle gourd, ivy gourd, etc thats done with minimal use of spices… The version served here was raw mango based and was seasoned just right while having the vegetables quite crunchy… Last but not least on the Banana Leaf, there were two kinds of Kootu curries, one made with lentils and pumpkin and the other spicy one made using yam and green peas and then there was also the Olan which I felt was made to be thick with coconut cream and using green lentils…
Everything tasted exactly like how they looked as can be seen in the pics below… Everything tasted clean and seasoned just right with mild level of spiciness over all… For dessert, there were 3 kinds of Payasam namely, the Coconut milk and Jaggery based Ada Pradhaman, followed by a milk and sugar based payasam made using Semolina / Vermicelli and then the quintessential Boli which is a sweet pancake made using all purpose flour, sugar and ghee which is typically coloured yellow with Paalpayasam which is the milk and sugar based payasam made using rice as key ingredient, as can be seen in the pics below… All 3 payasams were made with just the right amount of sweetness… The Ada pradhaman appeared to have some spices like Cardamom and clove and mixing and mashing it with the given banana is a good idea to try 🙂 The semolina payasam felt quite thick and starchy… However I wish the rice from the Paalpayasam was cooked better… No complaints on the taste though 🙂
Altogether, I felt that this was a fine Onasadya thats worth trying… I for one loved every bit of it as I felt the seasonings and spice levels were just right for me overall… Hopefully, I will get to try this again, next year as well… Fingers crossed… 🙂
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