Rise and shine, it’s breakfast time! Team MetroPlus went on a breakfast trail in Thiruvananthapuram and found out that the city is not short of places to eat, even at the crack of dawn. From crisp dosas and flaky porottas to piping hot filter coffee and syrupy sweet milk tea, each area dishes up remarkably different treats. In this new series, we look at what’s on the breakfast menu in different parts of the city, beginning with popular commuter hubs, Karamana and East Fort.
Karamana-Pappanamcode
It’s definitely a contrast of aromas and flavours in this part of the town, early in the morning. Alighting at Pappanamcode bus stand, your nose, rather than the motley crowd of office goers, college students and labourers gathered in front, guides you to Vadakada, a popular tea shop nearby that is famous for aripathiri, neyyappam and kinnathappam, apart from old favourites like uzhunnuvada, parippuvada, vazhakappam and vettu cake, which they keep dishing up by the bushel. At Karamana, the pervasive smell of hot sambar teases your taste buds, particularly in the bylanes near the Janamaithri Police station, thanks to a few old hotels such as Srinivasa Cafe and Hotel Annapoorna, nondescript local haunts that dish up delectable vegetarian breakfasts. Here one can tuck into crisp pooris, steaming hot idlis, fluffy appams and upma served on banana leaves. End your meal with a hot filter coffee while listening to many customers chatter away in a peculiar mix of Tamil-Malayalam. On the Karamana-Pappanamcode road, near the mosque, on the other hand, it’s meat on the menu, right from about 5.30 am onwards, for those who have the stomach for it.
Porotta savoured with scrumptious meat is the signature dish at Good Morning Hotel near Kunjalumoodu junction. But to get to a seat, you might just have to wait in queue, anywhere from five minutes to half an hour. Those in a hurry can head up Masjid road, where joints like Hotel Ijas offer smack-your-lips-delicious idiappam with mutton curry or perattu, if you can turn a blind eye to the surroundings that is. If you like to eat breakfast late, from around 10 a.m. onwards, Kochannan sahib is ready with his mutton dish of the day to serve hungry hordes.
East Fort-Chala-Attakulangara
For all it’s hustle and bustle during the day, East Fort remains mostly quiet early in the morning except for a couple of teashops that open along with temples at the crack of dawn. Strong tea, coffee and pipping hot uzhunnuvada sell the most. Vadas and jaggery-filled bondas are dished out in large numbers. Towards Attakulangara, it’s a different deal altogether. Some well-known restaurants such as Buhari and Bismi are housed in this part of the city and some of them open early in the morning. Spicy meat and chicken dishes served with fresh appam, puttu, idiappam and dosa are as delicious as it gets on a chilly morning. Though a bit unconventional, add to that fiery breakfast a glass of cold, tender coconut shake or chilled milk sarbath of different flavours — a speciality of the place.
By 6 am, a few more restaurants have woken up. The streets of Chala slowly come alive with the scent of fresh flowers mingling with an assortment of aromas from Hotel Sree Balaji, a popular vegetarian joint. Morning walkers and traders throng to have their share of piping hot dosas and idlis with piquant sambar and thick coconut chutney. Savour the fragrance of pure ghee that rises from steaming upma and pongal. All the while, the whiff of filter coffee is in the air. By the time the sun hits the streets of East Fort, restaurants and tea-shops at Pazhavangadi, especially those opposite the Ganapathi temple, are in full-swing selling all the usual vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare, ranging from porotta to poori.