Art in a Café

Imagine my surprise, walking into a cafe and greeted by none, no servers, no clutter of tables, no clink-clank of cutlery, just a vast space with an array of staring fiberglass dolls of varying colors, and paintings on the wall.

If you are like me, who can stare at a painting or an installation for hours, drink some black coffee, and gobble up some rich and delicious cakes, Kashi Art Café is the place for you.

An old Dutch house converted without disturbing any of its elements, which is so important to me when I visit converted old buildings. Each house each building I believe has a soul and any renovation should not disturb these basic elements.

After you finish staring at the art, you can enter other rooms, where you are welcomed by chairs and tables scattered throughout, filling discreet corners and giving the feeling of an art gallery, never a cafe.

Then you see a small kitchen, sitting areas, a coffee corner with Italian Espresso mocha pots, a cake display stand, tables that look like chocolate fondue, open space reaching up to the sky, some plants hanging out, an old wall with moisture paint, and people lazing around. Reminded me of old European town squares tucked into buildings along Burger Street, Fort Kochi.

For a moment, if you think they are craftily diluting their menu for art, you are wrong. The menu would seem unassuming and light, with items like sprout salad and potato soup.

So you think until you order one of those devilish homemade cakes. Oo Ma! The best chocolate cake I ever tasted in Kerala. The moment it tickles your taste buds, you are sure they have used the freshest ingredients without cutting any corners. While waiting for my espresso order, I chatted with Anoop Skaria, the co-owner, who must be loving his job tremendously.

He and his wife, Dorrie Younger, set up this cafe in 1997 for their love of promoting art, and because nothing like it existed in Cochin before. They are both art lovers and collectors, and Anoop says they came up with this idea to remind him of Vienna (Austria), which seems to be his favorite place. It would have been really risky to start something like this in Cochin, but to everybody's delight, they were proved right. They now boast two Art galleries, and Kashi Art Café is the most happening place in Fort Kochi.

Kashi Art Café welcomes budding artists and even runs resident programs with stipends for artists. Skaria tells me, with pride, that many now-famous artists, like Upendranath and GopiKrishna, started out small at their little cafe.

I ordered a chocolate cake (Rupees 55) and an espresso (Rupees 45). They were perfect for the beans. All this, along with Barbara Ash's 'Sugar and Spice'.

No wonder you feel connected to this place even on your first visit, with food and art, how could anything go wrong?

Series Reading.
1. A Princess Story
2. Upstairs Italian Cuisine

Idiyappam

Try telling the people in Tamil Nadu, that their staple food iddlis are not theirs but imported from Indonesia. Kakka Kakka, a Tamil film, which I loved, for the major part because of Surya ;) has an amusing scene. In that while the villain is questioning the lady, the co-villain interrupts the main one and asks, "anne pasikkathu, iddli saappittu varenne?" (Brother, I am hungry, can I go and eat some iddlis).

At such a tense moment, I burst out laughing. The dialog was so natural, accurately tamilian, cleverly put into the whole scene, it was amusingly ticklish. Iddlis are taken for granted in Tamil culture.

This post is not about iddlis, but about the stringy idiyappoms. Though as usual like we are proud of everything Malayalee, we are proud of Kerala's 'own' idiyappom too. Now tell that to the Konkanis, the Srilankans (it is called Indiappa....hmm...), the Malaysians etc. These food delicacies have legs, I say. They travel, roam the World, get stuck in various forms and shapes, in various cuisines and in hearts, we defend it as our own.

Idiyappam or String hoppers is a plain rice noodle made fresh. You can use double boiled rice or parboiled or raw.

Roast any rice flour in low flame, stirring constantly until it is just warm to touch. Boil water , add salt and add slowly to this rice in very low heat until it takes on the texture of wet clay. You are going to play with these.

Idiyappam press is similar to a cookie press, but it has an additional filter that will have very tiny holes. Make small balls and press the flour out to a steamer or your idli steamer.
At our home, we add fresh grated coconut between the layers of an idiyappam. First layer of strings, a little bit of coconut, second layer of strings, then a little bit of coconut.

Steam for around 10 minutes like idlis. You dont separate the strings as in a noodle, it is like rice steamed cake, with the texture of strings. Egg curry is a complimentary accompaniment with this breakfast dish.