[Alleppey, India] Dinner at Emerald Isle

[klyeoh (Peter)]

We arrived at Alleppey (I actually liked its local name, “Alappuzha”!) this afternoon. A place of lush beauty: gentle backwaters with palm-fringed canals, plied by silent, graceful houseboats. We are boarding one tomorrow afternoon but, for tonight, we are resting on land.

Dinner this evening was at Emerald Isle, one of the many riverside guesthouses for would-be houseboat customers awaiting to embark on their cruise.

Our dinner spread:

1. Keralan chicken roast - in Indian cuisine, when we say “chicken roast”, it usually refers to a slow-cooked dry curry. No roasting actually takes place, as the cooking is all done stove-top.
   The version here was very aromatic and full of flavours.
   

   

2. Mezhukkupuratti - stir-fried long beans with shredded coconut.
   

   

3. Pulissery - sour yoghurt curry.
   

   

4. Thoran - gently-spiced, stir-fried, finely-chopped cabbage.
   

   

5. Parippu - moong dhal (yellow split lentils) curry.
   

   

6. Chapati
   

   

There were only three of us dinner guests, and the food tasted very much like home-cooking.

Address
Emerald Isle | Heritage Resort/ Alleppey
Kanjooparambil-Manimalathara, Chathurthyakary Post, near Nedumudy, Alappuzha, Kerala 688502, India
Tel: +91 94957 77888

[Saregama]

What’s the welcome drink?

@klyeoh

the food tasted very much like home-cooking

I was thinking just that looking at the pics too – simple and homey.

[klyeoh (Peter)]

Pineapple juice, with some spices. Pineapples here are very sweet!

[klyeoh (Peter)]

Absolutely chuffed that our breakfast this morning at Emerald Isle were appams with egg curry - a Keralan classic which I’d been looking forward to.

And the chef here, under the tutelage of the hotel’s 75-year-old matriarch-owner, produced some of the lightest, spongiest appams we’d ever tasted!

I ate 6 of those!