Plating Traditions

Fairfield Marriott at Outer Ring Road has come up with a unique food festival which is called Plating Traditions.  This lets one discover the perfect business lunch matched with spread, efficiency and authentic deliciousness.   Food festival has been setup during Onam.  This is a seasons which marks the Summer Harvest and is celebrated with numerous Festivities.  Onam Sadhya is the special Vegetarian meal prepared during the festivity by both, men and women, especially when needed in large quantities, for weddings and other special events.  Chef at Fairfield came up with the idea of Sadhya meals as part of Plating Traditions.

Onam Sadhya

Traditionally the Sadhya is served on the banana leaves.  But in Kava Restaurant, the banana leaf cut in the shape of plate is put inside a round plate.  Each plate had variety of subzi, sambar, chapatti, rice, sweet, chips and pickle variants served in the Thali format.

Drinks

Traditional buttermilk/chaas was part of the Sadhya.  The taste was pretty good.  Jal Jeera is served as part of the Thali.  The drink has become quite popular among Thali restaurants.

Starters

There were 2 items for vegetarians – Malabar Vegetable Korma and Kootu curry.  Malabar curry contains specially ground coconuts.  Yam & Raw banana are the main ingredients for Kootu Curry.

Main Course

There were plenty of items part of the Thali including – Mixed Vegetable Thoran, Moru Curry, Ulli Sambar, Pazhampuri, Kothamalli Sadam, Thayir Sadam, Semiya Payasam.

Taste of every dish was quite good and it went very well with breads and rice.  The usage of coconut, small onions, Kerala banana was quite evident in many of the items.  Mixed Vegetable Thoran and Ulli Sambar were my favourites.

Bread & Rice

Chapati and Brown Rice are part of the Sadhya meals.  Brown rice if very popular in Kerala with plenty of health benefits.

Along with the above items rice-rice and plain rice were also present.  Someone not comfortable with the thick Brown Rice, can eat with white-rice.

Chips & Pickles

There were different varieties of Chips including Jackfruit, Banana, Potato.  Pickle varieties were also present, among these my favourite was the Jackfruit pickle.

Overall Experience

It was a great afternoon tasting some of the wonderful dishes prepared by Chef as part of Oname Sadhya.  The dishes had the optinum amount of spices.  There were couple of basic items missing from Onam thali including Banana, Paapad and Paayasam varieties.  Chef accepted my suggestion on adding some of the items in the next days menu.

I rate my current experience at 4.0/5.

Price of of Thali
Vegetarian – INR 595 / –
Non-Vegetarian – INR 695 / –

Onam Festival

Onam is the biggest festival in the Indian state of Kerala. Festival falls during the Malayali month of Chingam (Aug – Sep) and marks the homecoming of legendary King Mahabali. Carnival lasts for ten days and brings out the best of Kerala culture and tradition. Intricately decorated Pookalam, ambrosial Onasadya, breathtaking Snake Boat Race and exotic Kaikottikali dance are some of the most remarkable features of Onam – the harvest festival in Kerala.

Onam is a major annual event for Malayali people in and outside Kerala. Various festivities during this time includes Vallam Kali (boat races), Pulikali (tiger dances), Pookkalam (flower arrangement), Onathappan (worship), Onam Kali, Tug of War, Thumbi Thullal (women’s dance), Kummati kali (mask dance), Onathallu (martial arts), Onavillu (music), Kazhchakkula (plantain offerings), Onapottan (costumes), Atthachamayam (folk songs and dance), and other celebrations.

References

http://www.onamfestival.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onam

Picture with Chef Sudhir Nair