If you are looking to explore some Kerala cuisine whist in Chennai then Kudumbam offers a really nice alterative to the now jaded Ente Kerelam. Housed in a quaint bungalow with touches of a traditional Kerala home, Kudumbam is a restaurant cum boutique all wrapped in one.

One can browse through a collection of authentic Kerala artifacts, spices, pickles and so on whilst you wait to be served.

The food at Kudumbam is really quite excellent. One is offered a variety of deeply flavored curries along with a wonderful selection of seafood and meats prepared in a variety of ways.

The appams and Malabar paratha are fabulous – though you have to insist on being served the appams as they somehow always seems to claim to not have them. Just firmly insist that’s you MUST have appams and somehow they magically will appear. Their egg appams were my favorite along wit he chili fish curry.

They also offer an interesting array of fresh juices – I tried the gooseberry juice which was sour and tangy but yet refreshing.

Do try the crab appetizer and their mutton curry both of which were excellent. I would stick to the seafood over chicken.

Kudumbam is a wonderful addition to the Chennai food scene and I look forward to many more meals there.

Here is some of what we ate: