After quite a while, I was asked to buy food for breakfast and as I looked for options, I found this new restaurant in the list called Nikunjam Restaurant… Now first I thought it might be the legendary Nikunjam Restaurant located at Vazhuthacaud but this one is mentioned as located at Chenkottukonam… I tried searching online about it and there isn’t much info other than that there is a restaurant there having that name… I was hoping to find any info about whether its related in any way to the legendary place… Anyways, since my mom was in the mood for Kadala Curry and Appam, having seen the same in the menu here, I decided to go ahead and placed the order for the same… I also included some Porotta and their Chicken Curry along with it for me and my dad… The food was delivered soon and it was as shown in the pics below… 🙂
So, first let talk about the breads, shown in the pics below… The porotta’s appearance reminded me of the Porotta from another place but turned out to be not as soft and fluffy as them but still can’t complain cause they were still far better tasting than the Porotta from most of the other places… The Appam felt freshly made and compared to most others, I did end up liking these as they were quite soft and fluffy and as for taste, it had a neutral taste thats neither felt too sour not sweet…
Next, lets talk about the Chicken Curry… Its listed as “Kozhi Varutharachathu Curry” which means that its the quintessential naadan Kerala style Curry made using Roasted Coconut and Coconut Oil and traditional spices… This type of curry is usually quite spicy thanks to the use of Chilly Powder, Green Chillies and Dried Red Chillies and also smoky and rich due to the Roasted Coconut based gravy… This type of curry is my personal favourite to have along with Porotta and I think it works great along with things like Puttu, Appam, Rice and even Bread… In this curry, I found that the Chicken was cut into small pieces and were all cooked well… As expected the curry was definitely on the spicy side but not too much for my taste… I loved it with the Porotta and am hoping to try it with Puttu next time… 🙂
Last but not least, lets talk about the Kadala Curry… To be frank, I expected them to give me the naadan Kerala style Kadala Curry made with the roasted coconut based gravy and black chickpeas… Instead here I got a pan indian fusion version made using chickpeas (the white kind) and had elements of both North Indian (the spices) and south indian (ground coconut and coconut oil) cuisines in it… The Chickpeas were cooked well too and the curry seemed to have been seasoned well to the point of it being a bit spicy but quite mild when compared to the Chicken Curry… The Garam masala used felt to be on the mellow side and the taste of Coconut, Coconut Oil, Curry Leaves and Coriander dominates the taste here… My mom for one announced that this is now her favourite Kadala Curry… 🙂
So, felt like a nice breakfast overall as shown in the pic of my plate below… 🙂 Everything felt seasoned well and seemed to work together, as in, both curries seemed to work well with both Porotta and Appam…
So, thats it… As I said, the origin of the restaurant is still a mystery for me, but based on how everything tasted, it seemed to be promising nevertheless… I for one am hoping to be able to taste more items from their menu soon… 🙂
