Mota Fish : Authentic Keralean Food in Dubai

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.