If you are craving for idiyappam, appam and parippu curry, you are in luck. Mushthri Althaf prepares all this and more from her home. For the last three years, she has been preparing meals on request. Some of her signature dishes are — idiyappam and chicken stew, appam and chicken stew and fish molee. All she needs is a day’s notice. You can collect your Kerala meal from her home on Beach Road the following day.
“I prepare the food the same way I would for my family, ” says Mushthri. In the early 2000s when she lived in Kochi, Mushthri made ready-to-eat aloo parathas. “Understanding the market is very important. I realised here that not many people like to experiment much with food. So my target group is only a selected few,” she says. Over the last three years, her client base has grown to 60 people. She shares updates on the menu over a WhatsApp group called Food Wagon. “I get at least five to 10 orders in a week. This is ideal for me because I can manage the cooking alone,” says Mushthri.
A few weeks ago, she began offering healthy lunch meals as part of the menu, which changes every day. It’s usually two rotis (wheat or millets), a bowl of rice, two curries and a salad. “I request my clients to bring their own containers for carrying the meals to reduce the usage of plastic,” she adds. Mushthri packs the rotis and rice in banana leaf and the salad in a bowl made of dried leaves as well.
If you like your food on the other side of spicy make sure you give her a heads-up. She is happy to customise (with or without salt, spicy or bland and so on). She will have the food delivered too if you like, for an extra cost. She has partnered with Dabbawala, a local food delivery platform.
Besides Kerala cuisine, Mushthri also makes cutlets, momos, biryani, parathas, dal fry, mattar paneer as well as muffins and doughnuts.
Last year during Onam she received a great response and prepared over 20 different items. This time, Mushthri and her family will not be celebrating Onam due to the floods in Kerala.
Get your order from Food Wagon @ 7795137999
Address: Sea Surf Apartments, Beach Road
Cost: ₹130 to ₹ 230