We’ve eaten some very good food in Bombay in the last couple of weeks. A lot of it has been food people not from Bombay associate classically with the city: Malvani food, Parsi food, Gujarati food, Marathi food—and, as of yesterday, even an outstanding East Indian meal. Some of our best meals, however, have featured Malayali food, or the food of Kerala. Specifically, food from Delux Kerala in Fort. This is a small restaurant split across two levels: a small un-air-conditioned dining room on the ground floor and a small air-conditioned dining room on the first floor. Our first couple of meals of their food did not involve either floor: we got delivery via Zomato. It’s not a very long hop from the restaurant to where we’re putting up and we enjoyed both sets of delivery quite a bit. But eating in at the restaurant was a must. This because they do a sadhya or banana leaf meal that obviously can’t be ordered for delivery. On Sundays this has some extra items added on to it. I am happy to tell you that when we finally got there in person it was on a Sunday. Here is a look at that meal, and also at the two delivery orders.

By the way, in case you’re thinking that Malayali food is not very Bombay food, you should know that the city has very long standing South Indian populations, and South Indian cuisines of various kinds are very much an integral part of the city’s culinary identity. (See here for the Malayali meal I ate on my previous trip to the city.) And in South Bombay, Delux is very much one of the main places to go for Malayali food. Of course, Indians eat late and so you can work around this popularity. For our in-person meal we arrived at 1.15 to find the air-conditioned dining room completely full but the un-air-conditioned room completely empty. As it was a comfortable day—it’s cooled down to maximums in the 80-81f range in the last week—we chose to sit down right away rather than wait. The downstairs then filled up at a steady pace and when we left at 2.15 there was a surging wall of humanity standing outside, blocking the exit. Accordingly, my advice to you is to go before 1 for lunch.

What did we eat? Well, let me first tell you about our takeout orders. On the first occasion we got their kizhi chicken biryani. This is a style of biryani that is a relatively recent innovation in Kerala and features rice cooked with chicken in dum in a banana leaf parcel. It was tasty enough but I couldn’t promise you I could tell the impact of the banana leaf. Also very good was the surmai fry. Even better was the mutton roast and the parottas. At the second meal we got a bit more: the boneless chicken Kerala (which has quickly become one of the boys’ favourite Bombay foods), the chicken crispy (an ordering misfire as it turned out to be an Indian-Chinese dish—like every restaurant in the country, Delux has Chinese and North Indian dishes on their menu as well), the mutton masala fry, the chicken pepper masala, mutton biryani and more of the parottas. Everything was very good again but the mutton dish was another standout; and we liked this biryani better.

At our sit-down meal the missus and I got the sadhya. This is a vegetarian affair but we added on a few other dishes. The boys asked for the chicken Kerala again with parottas and that’s mostly what they ate; though they did help us finish an excellent prawn fry as well. The missus and I ate the karimeen pollichathu—karimeen or pearl spot (an iconic Kerala fish) coated with a spice paste and cooked in a banana leaf. The non-veg dishes were excellent but the sadhya was nothing to sneeze at either. Everything on it was excellent as well but I particularly liked the avial, the kootu curry, the thoran and the pineapple pachadi. Oh yes, we mopped all of this up with appams.

For a look at what we ate across all our meals, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down for price and thoughts on service, value etc.

Some people have mentioned receiving gruff service at the restaurant: we encountered no such thing. Despite how busy they were, our server was on top of things and very patiently explained the components of the sadhya to us (in some cases, more than once). Prices are very reasonable as well. The regular weekday sadhya costs a mere Rs. 238, I think (or less than $3). The weekend one rises all the way to Rs. 286 (still less than $4). Our first takeout meal cost Rs. 1078 (not counting delivery tip) and the second Rs. 1619 (not counting delivery tip). That’s roughly $13 and $20, respectively. With everything we added on to our sit-down lunch the total came to Rs. 2060 (before tip), or just about $25. This is very reasonable by Bombay standards as well.

In sum, I would recommend highly that you go if you’re in the city. The only reason to skip it is if you’re also visiting Kerala on your trip. If you don’t have an Indian credit card, however, make sure to take cash: they don’t accept foreign credit cards (I had to walk to a nearby atm).

Alright, I think my next report will be of a lavish Parsi wedding feast we got to enjoy this week (minus the wedding). That’ll be on Tuesday. Or maybe I’ll post a look at the fish market I’ve been visiting every few days since arrival. I’ll probably post both reports next week anyway.