I was new to Trivandrum, the hotel my company made me stay called as Le Franc wasn’t a hotel at all. Apart from complementary breakfast it has no other food. Even water wasn’t delivered to room, there ws a can and we had to drink from it. It was a lodge but those idiots called themselves a hotel!

I had to order food from outside, I think the very first day for dinner I ordered parotta and chicken liver fry from hotel chicz. The parotta came with a gravy which I never tasted because I ate it with chicken liver fry.

The liver fry was semi gravy and awesome and I loved it, for Rs 80/-, they gave a whole plate of liver fry. Afer eating it I had no trouble, the food was good.

I then moved into New Lotus PG after a week, and I took walk in the nerby main road, to my suprise I found out that hotel Chicz was there, I went in, the guy said he had some dishes, I asked for parotta and asked what side dishes are there, and he said a few and liver fry was not one among them. I told him I ordered it on swiggy and it was awesome, for some reason the hotel owner was thrilled and he was moved emotionally. They prepared it, this time with lot of pepper and dry, and with parotta it was awesome again!

I was surprised why this guy was moved so emotionally, I think he was kind of shocked and surprised when some one praised his hotel just before closure. I never knew they would close, because to me that hotel was a really good one, but now it’s closed and I am sad.

Finding good food in Trivandrum for a Tamil guy is tough, one of my PG mate has hard time here, he travels long to Tamilian hotels to eat, due to my family restrictions I never had chance to learn to drive a bike and I had to eat bad local food and live with it here in this new city. I had food poisoning twice, three people in my team too suffered from poisoning, one like me was poisoned twice. Plus the food here is too expensive, restaurants which charge the right rates are closing down.

I had found another restaurant named Cafe Elisa in Bhavani, Technopark. By mistake I first ordered Kappa briyani, and bloody hell, it wasn’t even briyani, it was some kind of thick beef stew. Yak. One thing in Kerala, Briyani is not Briyani. They simply don’t know Nizam or Mughal cooking. Some foods in Cafe Elisa costs, like chicken briyani is Rs 130/- and its okay compared to Swad aka Flavours and Platters, but the quantity is too little. But fish gravy meals is of good quantity, you get unlimited Kerala rice, fish gravy with a small pice of fish, along with gravy’s for rice and some side dishes, and it’s good. It costs Rs 90/-, but if you eat it for lunch, you can skip dinner, so its economical.

I felt Cafe Elisa was good when it came to fish gravy (here the people say it Fish Curry) meals, but now it too has closed down. I really don’t know what’s happening and why these hotels that don’t spoil health are closing down. The shops like Travancore Rasavada which gave me food poisoning twice are thriving. So sad…