After a lot of hearing about Ustad Hotel for sometime, we decided to try it out. I had tried going their a week earlier for lunch. I was disappointed to know if opens only after 4 pm. This time we reached after 1930 hours on a Saturday. It is a very traditional Kerala hotel, which is a house turned into an eatery. From the outside you can see porottas being made, and that sight itself will make your mouth watery, if you weren't hungry earlier. The appams are also fried outside. The seating is available only for 16 to 20 people at a time, so be prepared to wait for sometime which is the case mostly. On this day I had to wait for at least 15 minutes and that is less as it was a rainy day. There were flies around, which was a spoiler for our 6 year old daughter. It sidi took a while for them to clean the table, which I felt could have been faster. We ordered porotta and appams with prawns and mussels (chippi.) Porottas are smaller than the usual size, but soft and each one gets over in no time. Appam is also small,and for me it wasn't impressive. I have softer appams at home. The mussels were outrightly delicious. Prawns were whole and it takes a while to de-shell it. Prawns were fresh, but to me mussels were better. Its not often you see prawns getting upstaged, but here it was happening. I think its due to the fact that it takes a while for the flavors to get into flesh of prawns, as shells might be causing a delay. We rounded it off with a mint and lime tea, which was able to stand on its own even amongst this impressive seafood dishes. I had heard that pricing was in the higher side, compared to a few places nearby. I cannot comment as I haven't been to the others. For us pricing was not expensive for the quality of food served. The staffs are friendly and try to do their best in accommodating customer services.