Far too much information and a bad internet connection to put everything that’s been going on into one post so I decided to give a restaurant review. All photos though can be found here.
The Kingfisher restaurant on Kovalm’s Lighthouse beach is situated about half way along the strip of bars, restaurants and gift shops. We are here in June which is the middle of the monsoon season so tourist trade is quite but most restaurants are still open and touting for business as you stroll by disturbingly followed by a pack of local dogs.
The garden chairs are covered with stripy beach towels to make for a comfier seat when you are dripping with monsoon sweat, preferable to sticking to plastic chairs.
The lanterns that hang from the roof are the type you see for sale in Covent Garden market for about £10, they sell them in the gift shops along the beach for 20R (12p). I might pick a few up.
The back wall is covered with a larger banner for Kingfisher beer, rather like the one Mel had in her garden last summer for the BBQ.
Decor/Atmosphere: 10
It wouldn’t get any design awards (or health & safety) but it is exactly what an Indian beach bar should look like. The manager is a little man but very cheerful and like many people here could not do enough for us. He remembered me today a week later when I walked past and asked after my health – see below.
Toilets: 3.5 Generous maybe.
1 – for having one.
1 – it’s a toilet and not a hole.
1 – I have used worse (Luanda comes to mind)
0.5- I didn’t have to use it.
Drink: 5
Nice selection of mugs with which to drink your Kingfisher larger out of, this was something to do with alcohol laws, I’m sure if you brought your own beer you could drink it as you wished, but I thought it was rather nice that I got a mug with the Gemini star sign on it.
Other drinks such as vodka are available but served pretty much 50:50 to the lemonade, and don’t expect a chilled bottle of Chablis.
Menu Selection: 3
I didn’t really scan the menu, it look typical tourist fayre and because I had already been told about the hot fish platter and had pretty much decided before arriving, but Vicky had chicken which she didn’t really enjoy. The menu was presumably aimed at tourists as any locals who came in just ordered what they wanted and it looked nothing like what I had seen on the menu.
Food: 6
So six of us had hot fish platters (best shared between two). Calamari rings, Lobster, Battered Prawns and Barracuda in a tikka sauce.
The fish is laid out in a rickety glass case at the entrance to the shop, much like you would find in somewhere like the back streets of Brussels all packed in ice, but some how the mussels in Brussels look a lot less life threatening. I once got food posiening from some fish in the Cameroon I think it was and as much as I love fish and eat it a lot I am quite weary of it when I am in hot countries and I know it has been sat out in the sun probably all day. I had also had a touch of the old Delhi belly on the previous day so tucking into a seafood platter probably wasn’t the wisest move, but when in Rome! So I tucked in with gusto, my first bite of the Barracuda was wonderful, I mumbled with my mouth full to everyone to “try it try it”, it’s lovely. Then came my second bite, maybe a little too much fish on the fork but I had swallowed a rather large bone. I grabbed some naan bread to quickly try and help but it was just too painful to swallow. Everyone (in the restaurant) was now looking at me wondering what I was doing as I had started to panic a little, the owner brought me a banana to try and help but nothing would move it. So I decided to go out side the restaurant on the beach to try and cough this bone out (someone suggested the toilet, but that was not going to happen!). I stood on the beach with Nick slapping me on the back as hard as possible which apparently from inside the restaurant would have been highly amusing had we not been considering the possibility of a hospital visit – finally in desperation I picked up a bottle of the beer leaving my Gemini cup and downed the lot, something I’m proud to say have never been able to do and two seconds later the beer was back along with thank the lord the offending bone. At which point all the restaurant staff came running loudly out clapping and cheering obviously relived that they had not killed the English girl.
Happily I can report that no one was ill due to the provenance of the fish, and 5 minutes later I was back in the saddle and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my meal, although that could have been something to do with my new appreciation for life and the dizzy head I now had from the swift lager injection.
Nervousness of staff when faced with potential incident on premise: 8
Maybe I should have informed them I was not American so they were unlikely to be sued and being English I’d probably just thank them very much for their service that evening while on my death bed.
