Today, I was back at Azad Star at Mall of Travancore and to my surprise, saw that they have a new menu now… Of-course, all of their classic dishes are very much present but so are a number of new items as well… I had been craving for some Kothu Porotta and turns out they have a new variant which is the Chemmeen or Prawns Kothu Porotta… The waiter even recommended I try their prawns today as they apparently have got a good batch of Tiger Prawns… So, taking that advice, I asked for their Prawns Roast as well to go with the Kothu Porotta… Both arrived as can be seen in the pics below…
First, lets talk about the Kothu Porotta… First of all, I liked the new presentation of being served wrapped in Banana Leaf… To be frank, the Kothu Porotta itself looked pretty exactly like the Chicken version that I had been having from Azad over the years… It even tasted very similar as well (same spicy garam masala, porotta, onions tomatoes, etc and egg) with the only difference being that instead of the pieces of Chicken, here we have pieces of Shrimp… The similarities in flavour even made me wonder if they use the same Chicken Curry gravy for this one too as when I tasted the Kothu Porotta without the Shrimp pieces, I thought I tasted a hint of Chicken in it… Anyways, I felt the Shrimp and the Eggs were cooked well and the overall Kothu Porotta was cooked and seasoned well and was on the spicy side just like their Chicken version with the fragrance of the Curry Leaves cutting thru everything… Quite frankly, I don’t think the Banana Leaf wrapping had any effect in the taste here and seems to have been just for show… But its okay… As for the accompanying raita, again, it was just like any other with fresh onions, tomatoes and green chillies and when I discard those chillies, it helped balance out the spiciness of the Kothu Porotta… Overall, I found myself liking it, though I wish they would change the recipe to use a version of garam masala thats more suited to seafood…
Having had the Chicken version of Kothu Porotta many times before, I asked the waiter to recommend a Tiger Prawns dish thats not not spicy… Turns out there isn’t by default but he told me that he can have the chef make me a less spicy version of their Prawns Roast… So, thats what arrived as can be seen in the pics below served on a piece of Banana Leaf…
First of all, the Prawns were cooked perfectly… Though compared to the Kothu Porotta, the masala here was indeed less spicy, I personally felt that it was still a bit too spicy for the Prawns as it still felt a bit overpowering… The garam masala used here was slightly different when compared to the one used in Kothu Porotta as it seems to be more dominated by Coriander and also had the taste of Pepper and Cinnamon as well… Overall, I felt that its a nice Prawns dish on its own, but frankly, I wouldn’t recommend having this with the spicy Kothu Porotta, but rather I think this would be a great accompaniment to regular Porotta, Chappathi, Pulao and/or Fried Rice…
So, thats it this time… Yet another enjoyable lunch from Azad Star… The new menu does seem quite interesting and both of what I had today is indeed a must try for people who enjoy spicy south indian food and I for one, do hope to be able to try more soon…
