Ah… Its been a while since I posted anything here… Mostly been busy plus didn’t get the opportunity to try anything worth writing about… Today, however, when looking for options to order for lunch, came across this place called Jithu Joji Homely Food that I had never heard about before… Turns out its a naadan food place with multiple locations in Trivandrum and the reviews online are quite mixed… Since me and my parents were looking for Naadan food, I thought its a good opportunity to try and here we are… 🙂
Among their locations, its the one at Murinjapalam near Medical College area is where the food we got here is from… I had placed the order for their Fish Curry Meals, their Vegetarian Meals and also their Chemmeen (Prawns) Curry… So, the pic below shows essentially what I had ie, the Fish Curry Meals along with some Chemmeen Curry… The quantity of rice you see here in the pics is basically half of what they gave (definitely not the rice to curry ratio for my taste) in one portion as its best to remove the excess rice before pouring in the curries for it to last to have later 🙂
Anyways, lets talk about the food… Turns out each Meals set consisted of Rice, Sambar, Rasam, Kootu Curry, Theeyal, Cabbage Thoran, Chammanthy, Thairu Mulaku, Lime Pickle and Kappa… This much is common for both Fish Curry Meals and the Vegetarian Meals, which is why I didn’t take separate pics of the Vegetarian Meals and the Fish Curry Meals as the name suggests also includes a portion of Fish Curry as well…
Coming to the taste, the rice of-course was the usual Chemba Rice that we usually see typically in Kerala Meals… The Cabbage Thoran was well seasoned with the flavours of Coconut, Mustard Seeds and Turmeric dominating the taste along with taste of Cabbage and Onions and also, the fragrance of Coconut Oil and Curry Leaves… The Sambar had enough vegetables like Carrot, Brinjal, Okra, Bottle-gourd, Snake-gourd, Cucumber, etc unlike most places, but I felt that the taste of Okra is what dominated the entire Sambar as it seems to have completely merged with the curry… It felt great with the rice… The Kootu Curry appeared to be made using Pumpkin and Cow Peas and the Pumpkin usage provided the sweet component that balanced the spiciness of the other curries… The Theeyal for those who are unaware is a Tamarind and Coconut based curry made with shallots along with vegetables and seafood thats very popular in Trivandrum… Here it appeared to have been made using Elephant Foot Yams, Plantains and Moringa… Usually, this curry tends to be too sour for my taste, but here what I got felt to have that nice sweet and sour taste which I liked… The Rasam was just like any other, tomato based with the flavours of Tomato, Garlic, Mustards and Coconut Oil along with Coriander Leaves… Of-course the Thairu Mulagu and Lime Pickle were just like any other with the flavour of the Chilly / Chillies used along with it being Sour and Salty as always… The Chammanthy felt to have been made with Coconut along with Shallots, Raw Mango and Dried Red Chillies… It was nice and so flavourful that I ended up wishing I had more of it…
Last but not least, coming to the Seafood items, the Fish Curry was made using Choora (Tuna Mackerel) Fish… It was indeed on the spicy side with the flavour profile dominated by spiciness and flavour of the dried Red Chilly Powder and also the sourness that appeared to have come from Kudampuli, though I didn’t get a piece of it, cause of that signature smokiness in the taste along with the sourness… It was a single medium sized well cooked piece of fish that came in the given portion of the curry along with enough gravy to enjoy the rice I have taken with… It is mainly the spiciness of this curry that the couple of curries on the sweet side helped balance for me…
As for the Chemmeen curry, first of all, unlike the Choora curry, it wasn’t spicy at all… The Prawns used were all well cooked and flavourful… The Curry was clearly coconut paste based made using Moringa, Ginger and Green Chillies along with Raw Mango as the sour component and had a few vegetables in as well… In fact, I felt that it was the flavour of Moringa and Coconut that dominated the flavour profile of the Curry and to be frank, I felt this curry was a bit under seasoned for my taste…
So, overall, as the name suggests, the food indeed had that really nice homemade taste where the flavours are all very clean without any excess usage of masalas and fats as is the case with most restaurants… Both me and my parents thoroughly enjoyed the food and are hoping to be able to try this meals again as well as from the rest of their menu soon… 🙂
