Delicious Kerala Cuisine. Review on Southern Spice, Kondhwa, Pune

When you think of eating out in Pune, there are a lot of good joints and restaurants to choose from. If you are thinking specifically about having typical Kerala food, then Southern Spice is the place.

It is located near Ruby Hall (just opposite it). It is not a very big place, but has a reasonably good decor and good crowd too. When most of the crowd in there are Keralites, they put Malalayam songs, giving it the final little touch for the ''Mallu'' feeling. In short, they cater to the customers!

As you must be aware of, almost every dish prepared in Kerala uses coconut in almost all the forms --- oil, paste, grated dressings, or milk, mixed with light spices to flavor them. Kerala cuisine also has a medley of pickles and chutneys...and the crunchy papadams (papads), banana chips and jackfruit chips can give french fries a run for their money any day.

For those who don't want to pick and choose, thali is the best option (both veg and non veg). The cost is nominal Rs 60/- for vegetarian thali and Rs 80 for the non-veg thali. It comes with almost all the dishes that is a part of the sadya:

Rice: The staple food of the masses is steamed rice (the unpolished variety).

Avial: It is a combination of vegetables like snake gourd, yam, pumpkin, drumstick, etc. and coconut, s a very popular side dish. Sometimes, even mango and jackfruit are included in Avil.

Cabbage Thoran: Finely cut cabbage, is lightly fried with the tadka of onion, greeen chillies and mustard seed. It is garnished with grated coconut. Instead of cabbage, you can also use beans, papaya, and a few assorted vegetables to make thoran (do not forget to change the name of the thoran accordingly).

Rasam: Is best for digestion (and the nicely peppered one is good for cold). Rasam may be flavored tamarind, lemon, tomato, lentils and/or pepper. So be sure to mention your choice.

Pachadi: The main ingredients are pumpkin, coconut milk and curd with green chilly.

You also get other typical Kerala items:

puttu, which is rice powder and grated coconut steam cooked together.

Idiappam (string hoppers) or the ''rice noodle idli'' as my daughter calls it is also well made and goes will with kadala (channa) curry.

The most delicious appam, a kind of pan cake made of rice flour fermented with a small amount of toddy (fermented sap of the coconut palm). This is the traditional way of making it, but you can substitute toddy with yeast. Appam is circular in shape, my daughter says that it looks like a ''flying saucer with a crisp frill around it''. It is eaten with chicken or vegetable stew.

Pyasam: Payasam or pradhamans, are the traditional and the most delicious sweet dessert. Rice or vermicelli (noodles like thing made of rice flour) cooked in sugar/jaggary and coconut milk with a variety of dry fruits roasted in ghee for garnish, is really mouth watering. Southern Spice serves a different variety of payasam every day.

You also get different varieties of sea food made in the typical Kerala style: Squid fry, Karimeen Porichadu (a variety of fish fried with exotic spices), prawn masala to name a few. You also get fish marinated in spices, wrapped in banana leaf and steamed for the delicious aroma and taste.

If you are a food lover, you will walk out satisfied, with your stomach full, and with a smile on you face--looking forward to return to the place again. The best part is that it is not expensive!