Copper Castle, Munnar, India (Alissa and Don Eat Asia Day 17, Part 1)

I sometimes worry I'm a little too generous and positive in my appraisals of restaurants. Perhaps its because I worked hard researching good places to eat, but the vast majority of our meals in India have left us feeling genuinely satisfied, even surprisingly so in the case of the very cheap Rapsy Restaurant. As a means of contrast, let me tell you about our meal at Copper Castle.

After a morning and early afternoon of doing the Munnar tourist drive to Top Station and back, our driver Das took us to town to eat at Silver Spoon. When we got to town, we found that it was indeed right smack in the middle of town as I had remembered however it was closed for what seemed like renovations. Having to go with a second choice, we chose to forgo a second meal at Rapsy and decided on lunch at the Trip Advisor recommended Copper Castle, which was down the road from our hotel. Little did we know we had just made a huge mistake. 

We arrived to sit at the empty dining room of the restaurant, something I've come to notice is fairly usual with hotel restaurants in India as the dinner trade seems to be when they are at their busiest. We looked through the menu and chose to go with the Malabari Fried Prawns and the Pepper Chicken, along with two serves of parotta. 

We received our drinks quickly enough and began to amuse ourselves with conversation and making funny faces at each other as we took photos. But then things started to go downhill. We waited for what seemed like a very long time before we received our first dish, and when it came out we were both a little taken aback by how small it was.

The Malabari Fried Prawns were a lot smaller than we had expected. I'm not sure if the photo does justice to just how small the prawns were, but they were really very tiny – more like the smaller size you'd expect from a cheap supermarket shrimp cocktail than the usual meatier size I'd expect as a main. We ate this quietly, both of us commenting on how surprisingly small the serve was while noting that it at least tasted good. We were thinking maybe we should have ordered something else or that we may have to order an additional main, however the slow pace that things were coming out at made us hesitant to ask for an additional order less we extend our meal any longer. I understand prawns are more expensive than chicken or lamb, but I would rather pay more for a reasonable serve (either larger prawns or more small ones) than get a plate so insubstantial.

Things got even worse when they collected our finished plate. Unbeknownst to myself as I was facing the other way, the chef and kitchen staff came out of the kitchen to stand and watch as the waiter interacted with us.

'How was the prawns?' the waiter asked as he took the plate.

'It was very good, thank you,' said Alissa, being polite.

When he returned to where the staff were waiting, he spoke to them and they all started laughing. We're not sure whether they were laughing because they knew we'd obviously been fleeced by a stingy serve that they knew was no good or whether they were laughing because Alissa being Caucasian made her seem strange or some other reason. Regardless of the fact, this is unacceptable behaviour in any restaurant. I've never seen anything like it before.

After waiting again for a long time, the Pepper Chicken came out. We were very hungry by this point so to be fair the photo I've taken was after I'd already dished out some of the gravy onto my plate, but you can see that three measly pieces was all the chicken that was served to us. By way of comparison, have a look at the amount of chicken served to us at Rapsy Restaurant the previous day and you'll see how this was terrible value for money. The food was again at least tasty, having nice spice, and the parotta served to us was probably the best we had in Munnar. However I would later learn from Alissa that the restaurant staff again stood at the back of the room and watched, which made her feel very uncomfortable and self-conscious.

The Verdict: Okay

In all of our journey, I'm fairly certain this was easily the worst dining experience and most disappointing. I've heard that the nighttime buffet service is quite good but a restaurant should be bringing its A-Game at all times, and this was amongst the worst restaurant services I've ever experienced and the stingiest serving sizes we've encountered in all of India. A dish per person has been the rule of thumb at every other Indian restaurant we've eaten at, and my feedback to Copper Castle would be I'd rather have paid more for decent serving sizes that be served an insufficiently filling meal. But then at four times the price of Rapsy, one could eat food of equal quality to their hearts content and have a better dining experience to boot. Our meal here was at least good tasting otherwise this would be getting an even worse rating, but I thoroughly recommend you save you money and go to Rapsy Restaurant for a lunch in Munnar rather than have the kind of terrible service only Copper Castle seems able to offer.

Rapsy Restaurant, Munnar, India (Alissa and Don Eat Asia Day 16, Part 1)

I could have sworn the main restaurants in Munnar town were easier to find. We walked around the main city loop twice and just could not find either of the two restaurants in town that I wanted to eat at. By this stage of the trip, we'd entered the more relaxed portion of our holiday and my book of notes had become less necessary than it had been in Hong Kong and Mumbai. However, we needed the book now to help locate the elusive restaurants and I'd foolishly left them at the hotel. I was not going back down that pothole-ridden road just for the book so we had to just keep an eye out and hope for the best.

Little did we know that Silver Spoon (one of the restaurants recommended by Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet) was closed for renovations so we had no hope of finding it even though it is right in the middle of the main loop of town. We decided to try walking towards where the Tea Museum is, and as we walked up the road we found the other recommended restaurant in town – Rapsy Restaurant. From the outside, there is little to recommended it as it looks like any other restaurant in Munnar. The décor inside was very spartan, however it did at least look to be clean. As we sat down at a table a waiter handed us a notepad to write down our order:

If you're in the south and in particular Kerala, you have to have some fish curry. The curry itself was very good – having that sourness I associate with southern fish curry, but not overpoweringly so. Being a whole fish, I found the bones cumbersome, though I know this is the usual fare for this style. At the end of the day I'm hard to please when it comes to fish curries of the south as I much prefer the richer, creamier chicken and lamb curries of the north but I ended up eating this dish the most. Very enjoyable.

The other dish we ordered was the Chilli Chicken. This was done in a similar Chinese-inspired style to the squid at Trishna and was very tasty. Alissa liked this dish in particular and as I was happy with the fish curry I left this mostly for her to eat.

Alissa ordered chappathi at first, but when she saw the parotta I had ordered was basically roti paratha we ordered additional parotta to eat with our meal. The parotta was nice and layered in a way that is perfectly suited to the runnier consistency of southern curry, although a little crispier would have been nice.

The Verdict: Very Good

In a town like Munnar you're not not likely to find a high end restaurant like Indigo or Dum Pukht, or something a bit more casual but mindblowing like a Trishna. However, if you're looking for authentic South Indian food Rapsy is a very strong recommendation. I should also say that at roughly $5AUD for the two of us Rapsy is easily the cheapest meal complete meal we had in India, and that was with pretty free-flowing parotta as well. Considering we paid three times the price for the terrible service and stingy portions at Copper Castle, we would have rather eaten at Rapsy for a second time. Excellent value.  

Hornbill Restaurant, Munnar, India (Alissa and Don Eat Asia Day 15, Day 16, Part 2 & Day 17, Part 2)

I've really struggled with writing this post. Compared to a single dish or a meal served in courses, I find buffets to be less focused gastronomic experiences. Where you can focus on a plate of cogent and complimentary components, a buffet plate is a bit of everything piled together. Even when entertaining at home, I prefer to serve things in courses for this very reason. Still, having eaten there for breakfast and dinner for several days in a row, here is a brief overview of the Hornbill Restaurant experience.

Two years ago when I was last in Munnar I sent Alissa a text message that I was looking over fields of tea, and that I wish she could see it, and I sent the message to her at Hornbill. So coming here held special significance for us. As it turned out, we decided to stay at Blackberry Resort - the hotel that Hornbill is located within. 

Its a lovely location - situated on a slope and covered in creeper, the restaurant has views of the tea plantations below.

The service for breakfast and dinner is buffet style, with the menu changing slightly day to day. On our first night it was mostly Southern Indian, but on the night I took pictures of the spread on offer it had a lot more Northern Indian items. Additionally Chinese food is popular in India, and they do a fairly decent Stir Fried Noodles. 

Food is successfully kept warm in bains-marie that are kept closed to retain the heat. I thought they did a very good job of keeping the quality level up in a buffet situation. 

Here was my plate of food (clockwise from top right) - Chicken Do Pyaza, Butter Paneer, crispy Chilli Potatoes and the Stir Fried Noodles with some Saffron Rice underneath.

Alissa had a similar plate, but had a Mattar Paneer instead of the Stir Fried Noodles.

Everything was tasty, but the meat lacked that northern tandoor flavour and instead had a more southern twist. The curry gravies themselves were very good, and the harder halloumi-like paneer in the south has a nice squeaky chewiness to them that we both really liked. 

One issue we had with Hornbill was that while the buffet obviously had a lot of choices, there was no roti available. It was only after we'd already mostly eaten a whole plate of food that the staff came out and asked if we'd wanted a parotta. So parottas are available but they don't mention it straight away, and there is no sign or explanation that it will be cooked up when ordered. Make sure you ask for the bread if that is how you prefer to eat your curry. 

For dessert they have Ras Malai and Ice Cream. The Ras Malai was good, but we really liked the Ice Cream. They were all store bought ice cream and nothing compared to good gelato, but the flavours were always interesting day to day - and I just love ice cream anyway.

Verdict: Very Good
Though not mindblowing, the food at Hornbill is good enough that I would dine there even if I was not staying at Blackberry, as I have done in the past. They do Southern Indian very well here and their 'Southernised' Northern food is very tasty if lacking in that delicious tandoor flavour.