Malabar Café — Restaurant in Kerala

The restaurant has a casual vibe to it befitting one that offers a buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s clean, spacious and quiet even with a large crowd present. The restaurant offers seating for large groups. Casual clothes are fine. While you are there, enjoy the views from the balcony and the walking area in the lower level before, during or after your meal.

The staff were really nice and friendly. They tirelessly work at almost every table to help the guests enjoy their made to order section of the buffet.

The buffet is quite a large spread of various dishes from across the north and south of India stretching more than 200 linear feet of culinary treat. I didn’t measure the distance or count the number of dishes as it would have seemed silly.

Taste is subjective so your experience could be different.

The restaurant offered four different non-alcoholic soft drink selection. The kids and adults seemed to like them.

Right next to that is the made to order breads (roti, parotta, appam…) and meat and sea food grilling stations. We ordered few appams and phulka roti with almost all the seafood and meat on display (6 in total). The breads were soft and good. The sea food and grilled meat were delicious. I would load up on just a couple of plates of the shrimp and the thin cut fish steak the next time.

There were couple of non vegetarian and vegetarian starter options and couple of soups. I didn’t care for the soup but a few in my group did seem to like the soups. I expected to see a few more starters on the spread. They non-veg(fish deep fried and chicken tikka) and the veg starters (panner tikka and veg balls) were good and just tasted like they should.

In between the grill station and the starter is the oddly placed spread of a large number of pickles and accompaniments like chammanthi (chutney) and raita. Wonder why they found a place there.

They have a good selection of entrees. Mutton biriyani. Chicken, mutton and fish curry with creative traditional name badges on all. I tried various entrees and they all tasted like they should. Again nothing to write particularly about. I didn’t care to taste any of the North Indian spread (about 10 dishes) or the vegetarian Kerala specialities. I guess they all tasted okay I guess as nobody in the group that had them went for a second helping or raved about it afterwards.

The European, American and Mediterranean items were dishes out of a single station towards the far end of the buffet. About half the station is dedicated to pita, a selection of olives and pickled vegetables and meat, cold salads both veg (like german potato) and non-veg (like asian beef). There is a hidden shawarma pole serving tandoori tasting soft shawarma. I liked it though the taste was more Indian than anything Mediterranean or middle eastern. The kids enjoyed the pizza. The orange/lemon infused fish was good. I don’t think they were many takers though. The polenta and steak was a big letdown. I can’t wait to go back to a soulfully cooked polenta and shrimp soon. I ignored the lamb and vegetable stew. Why bother!!

The highlight of the buffet is the cake and pastry station. A huge island offering petite portions of decadent desserts. There should have been at least 30 individual offerings all so delicious. Loved the tiramisu, passion fruit pie, lime pie, Black Forest cake , blueberry tart. The one thing that I didn’t like was the mango (mousse kind of dessert) it just tasted like taken straight out of an old can of mango puree. The fan favorite was the blueberry tart. Loved the cappuccino. Just perfect for the long drive home. They also serve cold coffee, hot traditional tea and coffee.

Overall, I loved the service and the comfy restaurant. I would have loved to see a bit more of the taste and flavor of the God’s own country come through in some of the traditional dishes. Priced at 2600 INR including taxes per head. Children 5 and under eat for free. Go for the experience, variety and quality time with your family if you care not much about taste and...

I went with my family for the dinner buffet. We were all really excited for the hyped up buffet at Grand Hyatt. Unfortunately, I'd say this was rather disappointing. For a buffet worth 2400 per head (and then stupid taxes too), the spread was just above average when it came to variety. But most of the food was amazing and absolutely delivered when it came to taste. I especially adored the dessert section, which had some hidden gems (I devoured their berry based desserts—so good!!) My mom loved their kerala spread of plain rice, curries and veggies — they were superbly prepared! The juice section was rather lacking in my opinion, especially compared to various other buffets I've been to. The live counter food, especially the praws and the pizza were phenomenal. I was stuffed, but I still couldn't help eating the pizza. The crust was so thin and the base was dripping with flavour. Ahh, absolutely wonderful pizza — it's gunna haunt my dreams.

So the main problem was that the spread needed more variety and originality. I have went to many buffets in Kochi (with lower prices) that served up rather similar dishes. Their rice options in particular need to be more diverse. My mom was pretty disappointed with the biriyani, the chicken's cook was not great. Also, the amount of meat based curries started blending in my head and dulling my palate. Ooh but their pickles and other fermented dishes were so gooddd!!! I kept coming back for more. Also their salads were very boring. Other than a ham salad, there weren't many meat based salads. I also wish they had desserts like puddings, sorbets and icecream cake — which is more suited to a dinner buffet that payasam.

Some of the staff—not the waiters or the servers—were somewhat cold and perhaps a little borderline rude with the way they regarded us or gave us instructions. I think it's also very disappointing that their customer service could not speak in Malayalam when we called ahead to reserve a table. Any restaurant in Kerala should be able to converse with customers in Malayalam. That is basic respect to the land itself. It gave me a very bad first impression.

I was also really disappointed by our table. It was rather small for a family of our size and we were placed right under the A/C vents. All of us where shivering while eating and it made the whole dinner very uncomfortable. I have woken up with a very sore and itchy throat. We were also placed in a secluded nook behind a lot of pillars, and it made it really hard to get around, especially since it was a buffet dinner. We also had to wonder why we weren't placed in the plethora of tables lying around empty. So while the architectite was spacious (I loved the industrial influences to the decor) and the lighting was lovely, it was kinda ruined by all of these things.

Which is why this turned out to be a 3 star experience for me. But I definitely wouldn't say this was a depressing dinner. We celebrated my sister's 21st birthday, and my whole family was happy and excited just to be there. We finally have Grand Hyatt ticked off our list, though it was, as I explained an underwhelming experience. Definitely not worth the big bucks you spend, unless you say you're spending it on the whole Grand Hyatt experience — which wasn't much by the way, except for the few minutes we spent admiring the fountain and the sparkly lobby. We couldn't even get a glimpse of the sea or whatever since they had placed us next to a pillar, all cramped up against a wall (guess I'll be pissed about that for a while lol).

Ok, I am gunna stop now :). Basically, it was rather underwhelming— especially for the hype and freakish price. (This review is not proofread, so there might be typos and errors,...

We stayed at Grand Hyatt for 2 nights in the month of March 2021 and happened to eat here one of those 2 nights.

Considering the hotel was under 20% occupied and the restaurant hardly had any guests, they still seemed to be under staffed. We got the menu only after a little delay (not an issue really). There were just 4 tables occupied at about 8.30 pm.

Whilst taking the order what we noticed was that the waiter was trying to tell us in many ways that most items aren't available by telling us that the dishes would take up to 40 minutes in some cases. Gilafi seekh kebab was not available amongst a few other items. We ended up ordering Lebanese whole grilled/roasted chicken, dish of lamb bone-in gravy dish, some kind of a chicken fry, and whole appetizer plate.

The Lebanese chicken was served with roasted slices of thick cut potatoes and some dip with a little salad, the piece unfortunately we ate last was very undercooked and had blood stains on the inside. We didn't bring it to the waiter's notice. The khubz (arabic bread) served with the chicken was too thick and didn't feel fresh. The lamb dish was so so. The porota was exceptionally made, so was the chicken fry. The starters comprising of hammus, mutabbal was above average.

Either they had some issues that night or they were all busy attending to the needs of 1 of their owner's who was present in the cafe at the same time as we were.

Lots of place for improvement when compared to international standards. The breakfast spread is huge, too many items to choose from, but they lack the finesse. The counter for fresh juice is very good. They mix n match to our liking. They serve hot spiced black tea with dinner that's very good and comforting post dinner.

But that was not the real disappointment, that came in the form of a pastry my wife ordered and some German chocolate thing my friend's wife ordered, they were both really really bad.

We paid close to INR 8,000/- for dinner which was no way close to being worth relative to the...