Grand Pavilion — Restaurant in Kerala

I have been a lifelong patron of this hotel - food is excellent, I have to say that. My extended joint family lives nearby so every time I visit from USA, everyone has meals there, sometimes multiple times during each visit. Unfortunately Grand has lost a loyal patron forever.

We went to the hotel yesterday and it was peak rush hour. The wait was for more than 20 mins. Since I’m in Kerala for just a few days, my relatives and I decided to get some chores done including shopping from nearby stores. We returned back, there was still a wait so we decided to leave since we were hungry.

Took our car from the parking lot, and suddenly we were surrounded by 3 security guards questioning if we parked the car and went elsewhere. We said yes truthfully and explained about the wait time. They accused us, got angry, and it quickly escalated into an argument. They asked us to pay the parking fee and we agreed. Didn’t want further escalations (and we were still hungry!)

The guards routed us to the reception where we were asked to pay Rs.500! I was flabbergasted. Argued more, explained that we came to eat there. In fact we had even come the day before and had lunch there as a family, ordered quite a bit. We also argued that we really had no need to try and save a paltry Rs.40-50 on parking spots. It was all futile. They insisted we pay the 500, instead of considering what actually took place.

Suffice to say, they will never be seeing us again at that restaurant....

Without a doubt, the grand hotel is a historical Kochi establishment. For years it's stood in the midst of M.G Road as a landmark. This isn't my first time here, I've come here multiple times over the years. I believe what keeps it going is this self propagating machine that is historical precedence. The place has been offering fine dining even before Kochi became the Kochi it is today. What it has done however is fall behind on the quality of the food. Sure they offer a wide range of cuisines for you to enthusiastically run your fingers across the menu, but the missing ingredient is the lack of flair or passion, the beef fry and porotta which you'd be hard pressed to mess up was disappointing. The porotta was almost certainly reheated frozen porotta , and the beef fry had spicy outer layer that was a complete stranger to the meat inside. The chicken parmesan too was flat tasting. The messiahs of the meal were the tempura prawns and the biriyani, the prawns deep fried to perfection in a beautifully smooth batter served with a honey , oil , chilli based sauce. The biriyani harkens you back to the days of the classic biriyani with a whole egg , back to the days before the invasion of mandhi. The souffle was inspired. Come here to be part of a Kochi that has proudly stood here as a symbol of persistence in the face of change and while you're there, have the food...

Grand pavilion is one of the oldest restaurants in kochi. Go there for some authentic cochin cuisine. We had their special dum biriyani (DP Biriyani) where they stuff each biriyani into small earthen pots and open the dum at your table. We tried prawns , chicken and mutton biriyani.We also tried their beef fry and prawns chilly. Biriyani was great..the rice and meat were well cooked and tasted great. The mutton masala and chicken masala felt kind of similar but nevertheless it was a good biriyani. Overall the quantity of meat in the biriyani was great.Prawns chilly tasted great and beef fry was okayish. The only thing that bothered us was the premium charges for the food items. Dont get me wrong.The food was great.But i felt the biriyani didn't have anything special to warrant a 510 rs price tag.Neither does the ambience of the hotel.Also something small like a cup of lime tea costs 90 rs.They try to compensate by providing services like valet parking,serving alcohol at the table (this would be the one of the very few family restaurants in kerala who serve alcohol at table) and good table service (courteous and responsive staff).There is a decent wait time of 30 mins during weekends and sundays. Ample...