Biniyas has not ordered anything yet. Karthik walks in, and starts browsing through the pictures on his phone. He stops to click some open, tell the story of that day. Biniyas is in the pictures too, so are two others — Oneal Sabu and Candy alias Kadambari. Looking at the pictures now, days after that trip they all took together to Thiruvananthapuram, makes Biniyas and Karthik hungry. It was what they call a food walk, exploring the less explored places to eat in the city and the outskirts. A little after that Thiruvananthapuram trip, they had another, to the other end of the state, to the dream land of every food lover — Kozhikode. Sitting at Café 17 in Kochi, where the two have ordered a triple decker chicken sandwich and cold coffee, they rewind the days, to a year ago when a Facebook group of food lovers called Eat Kochi Eat came to exist, their friendship that began afterward, and the concept of food walk.
Oneal, Candy, Biniyas, Karthik
“It began one day when a restaurant owner in Coimbatore wanted to open an outlet in Kochi. He asked if someone from the group would like to come and taste the food there. He told this on a Saturday and on Monday morning, there were nine people riding in two cars,” Karthik says of that first tour they made out of Kochi. “And since we were going to Coimbatore anyway, we decided to explore 11 to 12 restaurants in one day.”
Ardra, Candy, Biniyas, Karthik
Oneal, who brought on the concept of food walk, writes from Dubai, “Waking up to the thought of your daily dose of #foodporn is enough impetus to get you all geared up for a 200 mile journey or even more just to satiate your insatiable hunger for uncovering well guarded secrets of local cuisine that is still elusive to some. If I were to sit at home and think that I get the best food in my city, I would never do justice to that food enthusiast in me. It is the desire to stay connected to earth and eat like no one’s watching that takes you places sans cultural shocks. You eat, feel and savour delicacies just like how it is done by a local in that place. It is this passion that keeps the spirit of the food walks alive. We came, we ate and we conquered!” So there came a Food Walk Company and then the trips.
When the Thiruvananthap-uram trip happened, Karthik’s friend Candy came down from Bengaluru to join them. “I saw the pictures they posted on the group from the previous trips and decided to take a break on a weekend in Jan. When we started talking, we found lots in common, especially the passion for food,” she says. Karthik and co were surprised that Candy could eat so much. They laugh and say she is the biggest foodie among them. “They thought that girls don’t eat much,” she says. She did have the fear about upsetting her stomach and thereby the travel. “But these guys knew what they were doing, they found good places. More than the food and the travel, there is also the experience you get. One of my favourite places came in the Kozhikode trip. It was called Balentante Kada and there was such a big rush. But this one man would manage everyone, still have a smile for all of us, make you feel at home. We went to the kitchen, spoke to his wife and his daughter. It was like visiting someone’s home.”
Knowing and getting close with each other had also been an experience. “I only know him for months,” Biniyas points to Karthik. “We don’t realise it but when we all talk it’s mostly about food. It was when an outsider came and sat with us we knew it.” They are not chefs or cooks, they are people who say if they would come back to a restaurant they visit once. “And we always add the disclaimer that taste is subjective,” says Karthik. They had video blogs of the Thiruvananthapuram trip — 20 places in two days. “We google, ask people to decide where to go." So they went to Hotel Krishna in Balaramapuram for mutton, to Usthad Hotel in Vizhinjam for sea food, for fish and the ambience in Villa Maya, crab in Thamarassery Churam, and their best pick — Clafouti in Varkala, because it was sea facing.
“Thiruvananthapuram was more of an experience than Kozhikode. Because Kozhikode is already famous for its food. Thiruvananthapuram was less explored,” Karthik says. In Kozhikode too, they went two days, but without Oneal, and with Candy’s sister Ardra. There was porotta from CP Hajees, chatty pathiri at Zains, sea food at Kingsbay, cakes at Hug A Mug, Adaminte Chayakada, biryani at Rehmath, beach food, and the famous fish mango curry at Paragon.
Then there’re always short trips to Fort Kochi or Mattancherry. “The food walks also help restaurant owners from outside Kerala to see if they can start outlets here. And for people from Kerala to find out if the local delicacies would work elsewhere,” Biniyas says. So there is the concept of pop-up restaurants, when someone from outside visits to introduce their dishes. “Our next food walk plans are to travel outside, find out what we can bring to Kerala. The idea is to experience, import and export.”
