What is important while introducing new dishes from across borders is whether its taste would suitably live up to the demanding taste buds of the local population. Chinese food, in it authentic form would be hardly palatable to the spice craving average Malayali. Like remakes of other language films, the dishes would be accepted only if it has been nicely Malayali-fied.

The Chilly Beef - and this goes the same for the Chilly Chicken as well - served at Nikunjam has in it, the requisite amount of spice, which will tease your tongue into savoring the saucy variant taste that has arrived from across the land.

The best combination to have with the Chilly dishes is Parotta. Many advice against consuming Parotta and maybe for the right reasons too. But for this kind of epicurean experience it is worth living on the edge, once in a while, or for everyday for the ones who live to eat first and everything else for later.

“The restaurant opens at 8:30 in the morning. Closing time varies. Nine is the standard time, but most days we are closed early because the food is over by then. It has been a long time since we had to worry about the left over food. On the contrary, the challenge is to meet with the orders,” smiles K Manoj Kumar.

While Chilly Chicken and Chilly Beef rule at Nikunjam, the various other chicken and beef dishes – the fries and curries – are more or less on par with the chilly dishes. So even though it is recommended to have a taste of the Chilly Chicken and Chilly Beef at Nikunjam, you could order any of the dishes that make up the menuand rest assured that you are in for a real treat.

This is why you often find quite a few of the people lining up outside the restaurant, placing orders specifying that the parcels need to be neatly secured because those parcels will be travelling to Chennai/ Bangalore/ Kochi … wherever non-resident natives of Trivandrum bond over the taste of Nikunjam’s Chilly Beef and Chilly Chicken.