With the number of restaurants springing up in this town, its very hard to visit the same place twice (at least for us). Coconut Grove was one of those places we went to when Bangalore was still working on its repertoire of specialty restaurants. All those years ago, seeing the wait staff dressed in mundus was quite a novelty. One Sunday, with family in tow, the urge to have a good fish curry rice hit - being Mangalorean after all, some habits are hard to kill and so we thought of going the Mallu way and headed to Coconut Grove in Koramangala. 

Nothing has changed with the decor, the seating and even the uniforms of the wait staff except perhaps for the wear and tear that was pretty obvious with the place. The uniforms too seemed dull and faded but perhaps the food wasn't and so we settled down. I remember rasam being served here in glasses and as being heavenly. And so to drink we had the Rasam (pepper, coriander, garlic, condiments et al), Thein Elaneer - coconut water with honey and mint and a Malabar More which was buttermilk spiced with onion and ginger and couple of other things. All good. 

For the starters we had the Panni Varathathu - a pork dish, which came with an equal balance of fat and meat, tossed in pepper, garlic, onions, green chillies and spices. Nice, without being a dish you will dream off at home. We also had the Kurliachi Roast - a preparation that the resto claimed to be unique. It was spicy, red and just about ok. The crab though was pretty blah with most of it being hollow shells... wonder if they magically sucked the meat out. 

Perhaps the number of restaurants offering better Kerala cuisine did this place in, but fact remains that they have lost their charm. The boredom that creeps in with doing the same monotonous thing over and over again is evident in the food. Maybe for a quick lunch on a working day. But if finger licking good is what you are looking then maybe you should look elsewhere. The loo is pretty decent. The meal came to around Rs 1200.