On a gastronomical journey with Suresh Menon

Click on the pic to view slideshow Onam is the New Year of Keralites. As Onam falls on the 29 of this month (August), I felt it would be appropriate to take Mallu (for the uninitiated Mallu is slang for a Keralite) and my dear friend Suresh Menon, the funny radio jockey and laughter king of television and movies for the rest of you, for a gastronomic outing. The venue was fixed for lunch at Sankalp restaurant in Chembur. From the glass frontage of the restaurant I spotted Suresh alighting from his Mercedes in his now trademark cap. I introduced Diganth Mehta of Sankalp as the Gujju who excels in serving South Indian food and Suresh’s take on that was, “My wife is a Gujju and I love Southie cuisine.” She is producing a film of which obviously Suresh is a part. I had a lot of laughter moments with the official funny man as he took me around comedy circus with his jokes. But Suresh rues the fact that the present generation of stand up comics is nowhere near those of his time. He is all for vulgar jokes and slapstick comedy as long as it keeps the viewers’ eyeballs stuck to the show. Suresh queried, “What’s the big deal in slicing The Dirty Picture for television viewing and putting it in a late night slot when today’s kids have access to internet and porn material, channels dedicated to nature and wild life shows explicitly telecast how babies are made and born.” By then we had the starters – Fried Cheese Idlis, Pakoras and Potato masala crispies along with Lychee Fizz. Suresh loved the fried idlis and more so the Lychee drink that came with a dash of Sprite which reminded me of Suresh’s feelings for his wife, “My wife will love it. Must bring her here.” Karamura Dosa was crunchy and it came with inbuilt ‘gun powder’ (chilli powder) in it. The accompanying chutneys of coconut, tomato and coriander were appreciated by us. Sankalp is an Ahmedabad-based restaurant chain that has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for preparing the longest Dosa at 30ft. Today we got a glimpse of 1/7th its length as Chef Swamy presented a 4ft of crisp, golden brown, rolled-up dosa to the pleasure of our honored guest. I had some fun moments when Suresh mock lifted the dosa like a wrestler, then turned a karate kid as he made gestures of breaking it like a martial expert breaking bricks with bare hands. All in good fun and also cracked some jokes to humour me. He is all praise for Yashraj and Dharma Productions for their ethics and value system. “Your parents should be your everything,” he asked throwing a rhetoric, “how can you trust a person who cannot be true to his parents. Jo apne mata-pita ke nahi hue who kissi aur ke kya honge.” He misses his parents very much especially when he shared screen space with his idol Mohan Lal in a Malayalam film, he was sure his parents would have been very proud of him. When it comes to the main lunch, the actor wanted to relish with his fingers typical South Indian sambar sadam with Kerala pappadom. Diganth also made sure we have the curd rice or thayir sadam, with curd chilli as accompaniment. Presently shooting for Masti sequel, Suresh’s ultimate aim is to start a 24-hour comedy channel. He informed that he is working on something on those lines. And we are waiting for that laugh-a-licious treat from you Suresh!