The luxurious ambience of Jamavar at The Leela Palace Bengaluru, played host to us at our exclusive preview of the Mangalorean Food Festival.
Jamavar is named after the intricate brocades of Kashmir and its interiors are adorned with intricate Jamavar wall paintings with pure gold leaf and vegetable dyes.
Well fate seems to be suddenly rewarding me for being a Mangalorean, going by the spate of Mangalorean food festivals that I am having the pleasure of attending !!!
The relatively small city of Mangalore, is home to several different native communities and consequently their distinct cuisines. With the Bunt, the Roman Catholic, the Goud Saraswath Brahmins, the Beary muslims and so on, there is an enviable range of dishes that proudly and flavorfully qualify as Mangalorean.
We sampled from a tasting menu that was specially curated for us and a matching number of veg and non veg items, made sure that no faction felt left out 
We began with the famous Kaney rava fry, the semolina encrusted Lady fish that was fried to a crisp on the outside, while retaining its fresh succulence inside. This was served alongside the Kundapura Mamsam, the mutton dish cooked in the Kundapur style and the Kori ghee roast, chicken roasted with curry leaves in a pleasurable surfeit of ghee Both these could have done with a little more spice, in my opinion.
The vegetarians had the Cauliflower Malligai, Chatt ambode and the Baby corn bezule, which were deep fried cauliflower florets, deep fried dal vadas with dill and baby corn deep fried in a traditional masala, respectively … deep frying seemed to be the theme here but no complaints from me
At the main course we had the Yetti Gassi which is a type of Prawn gravy (and not Yeti meat 
). This was followed by the typical hot and sour fish curry called Meen Puli Munchi, Mutton sukka, the stir fried lamb with its coconut garnish and the Kori chop curry with chunky legs of chicken in a coconut and poppy seed sauce. Dali tovay, the seasoned dal that accompanies nearly every meal, was also served in a little silver bucket.
Traditional Mangalorean breads like Neer dosa, idiappam and appam were the accompaniments to our gravies. While the Neer dosa was really not lacy enough for me, I was quite satisfied with the string hoppers and pretty pleased with the Appams, which are always my favorite accompaniment.
The vegetarians were served the Bende kai Ajadina made from Mangalore’s special light skinned ladyfingers, the Pineapple Menskai, a sweet and sour curry using ripe pineapple, the Batata Padengi Gassi, potatoes cooked with mung sprouts and the Tharkari Pthartha which had vegetables simmered in a coconut cashew sauce … and 3 consonants in a row. I Pthought that it was quite a waste of a P 
The Beary style biryani, a mild flavored version of Biryani which is made by the Mangalorean Beary muslim community, was also served both in chicken and vegetarian.
Dessert was the perfectly created Mung dal and sago in coconut milk which was sweetened with palm jaggery.
We also had the famed Gadbad ice cream which is a rich concoction of various ice cream flavors along with a generous helping of dry fruits.
Of course I made sure that I indulged in both of them, despite there being a Jam’a’War in my tummy !!!
The Mangalorean Food festival starts on 12th September and goes on till 21st September, 2016.
For more pictures see My Facebook – The Leela Palace-Mangalorean food festival
Sep 10th,2016
