Mota Fish : Authentic Keralean Food in Dubai

Author John Thomas
Sometimes it is dining at the stars, other times it is visiting authentic joints that revive fond memories of home and take me close to the roots. Yesterday of all days, I was missing the traditional keralite food big time, so I decided to visit Mota Fish restaurant situated in Al Barsha.

The restaurant has been featured in the posts and stories of many a blogger so decided to try it out and figure out for myself, what the hype is all about.

A humble malabari shack serving some very popular naadan dishes mota fish seems to have found a niche clientele who love their philosophy of food.

I visited with a friend who is a foodie and blogger himself, so it was fun. We started off with some lemon mint soda, which was a tad too salty for my liking. In appetizers we ordered two of our very favourite dishes - Natholi fry and prawns fry.

Natholi was super crunchy as I would prefer it to be and prawns I felt was kind of overdone to an extend that it lost it's very intrinsic flavour and tasted like something else..



Main course thankfully was better. We ordered Karimeen Pollichatha, appam, and crab roast. The karimeen pollichathu came wrapped in a banana leaf like it typically is presented. It was packed with flavour and went as a great side for the appam. Crab roast was a red and rich, thick gravy which was an equally tantalizing dish perfect as a side for any Indian bread or rice.

While I am typically a biryani person, last night I decided to try out the Kanji  (Porridge ) which is very rare to find in a keralite restaurant in Dubai, despite there being a zillion of them in every nook and corner. The drive to Al Barsha all the way from the other end of Dubai was totally worth it for me, just for the Kanji. In fact it felt so nice having it after ages that I ordered for a second bowl of it.

It came with fried chili, chammandi - a kind of tantalizing south indian side dip, papad, pickle and payaru.  At 13 dhs one bowl was very filing. Two was surfeit.


We culimated the dining experience in desserts. We ordered the dessert of the day - Payasam. It was too sweet for my liking but I am sure payasam lovers would find this dessert very nice.

Overall food was good. Service could be better. Ambiance needs some enhancement especially seating. Wooden seats were not very comfortable to sit on but they have better furniture outdoors.


MotaFish Restaurant Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Comments

  1. Food LoverJune 1, 2020 at 3:07 PM

    Mota Fish is one of the best restaurant in Al Barsha Dubai. There is another amazing restaurant in Dubai called Muscovites Restaurant, they serve one of the best Indian & Russian Cuisine in Dubai

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJuly 20, 2020 at 4:11 AM

    KOBEYa, the café and retail store, has a unique concept that brings joy to gluten free healthy eating.

    Our aim is to serve healthy food that caters to a variety of tastes. As our name suggests, our menu features Kobe Beef, known famously around the world for being the highest quality and healthy red meat.


    Healthy Food Dubai

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andy smithJanuary 27, 2021 at 12:47 PM

    I have heard a lot about Keralean Food in Dubai, I will try to find the best restaurants in Dubai for it so that when we travel we can also enjoy the dishes. We are planning to travel to Dubai in the next month, we are a group of four friends we also wanted to get some help in getting a Dubai visa, if someone can let us know the process.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pia smithMarch 22, 2021 at 4:48 PM

    Brilliant post! Dubai is rightly called the Global city as it boasts of a plethora of offerings in terms of entertainment, shopping & Dubai Cuisines. I would love to grab a Dubai visa & visit this amazing city with my better half to make memories for life.

    ReplyDelete

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