Fresh ingredients from Kerala

Kerala meals and breakfast items like pathiri, idiyappam and parotta are a must-try here

In Kerala, a samovar is a water heating container that is used to prepare tea. A restaurant in Kammanahalli adopted its name and gave it a new avatar.

Samovar Restaurant has an elegant interior designed in a modern way with traditional touches to give a nostalgic feel to its customers. The restaurant opens at 8 am and functions till late night.

It doesn't take too many to guess that the restaurant specialises in Kerala cuisines. But fret not; they also serve a few North Indian and Chinese dishes.

For breakfast, you can look forward to the quintessential dishes 'Puttu', 'Kappa', 'Pathiri', 'Idiyappam', 'Dosa', 'Parotta' and 'Chappati'. You can pair it with either vegetarian or non-vegetarian curries that can prepared in forms of stew and masalas. Chinese and North Indian breakfast dishes are also available.

Kerala meals is the main attraction here. If you go there on weekends, meals will be served as a mini-sadhya. With little above Rs 300, customers can relish sadhya with more than 20 side dishes during festivals like Vishu and Onam.

'Thalassery Biriyani' is another favourite here. Vegetarian, fish, chicken and mutton biriyanis are available here.

Other popular dishes include 'Chicken Shappu curry', 'Chicken Mappas', 'Kappa Biriyani', 'Puttu Biriyani' and fish rava fry. That's not all! There are a variety of snack items that you can pair with your hot cup of tea, or as they like to call it 'choodu chaaya'.

They make the masalas for the dishes in-house. Perhaps that's what makes their dishes tastier. The spices are imported from Munnar. Their partners in Calicut buy fishes directly from fishermen and bring it to Bengaluru thrice in a week. The cook is also from Kerala. They have a different chef to cook Chinese dishes. Roopesh, the manager, claims that they don't use any artificial flavouring like Ajinomoto.

The restaurant also offers catering services for functions up to 2,000 people. Apart from their outlet in Kammanahalli, Samovar can also be found at Coffee Board Layout in Nagavara.