[RECAP] WW Food Crawl Meet-Up Kerala Angamaly

When the world wide food crawl program was announced, we, Kerala Local guides wanted to do it in a different way. We decided to organize multiple food crawls on multiple cities on 16th and 17th of Dec. 4 official food crawls were approved in Kerala (a small state in India) and Angamaly was the fourth one.

I had set the upper limit of participants to 6 as i was not sure about the response from local guides from this area and also due to the fact that another meet up was happening in Kochi(45 km from Angamaly) on the same day. Still more than 10 people showed interest and said they will be there on time . So i came to the venue at 5.10 and when i reached there Mr. Joshy Valavi was already there. Joshy came to know about the Local Guides program few days back and was keen to know about it. So even though he was not a Local Guide he came for the meet up to know hot to become one. I was not expecting this kind of enthusiasm from a person who is 58 years old. My salute to you Joshy Chetta!

Around 6 PM Mr. Stanley Chirayath, a vetean IT guy showed up. I was amazed to hear that he learned C language (OOPs programming) while I was still in my nappies! So no talks about his age, neither mine! We kinda talked about the food we are gonna have and yes, a little bit about Google Maps too. It was 6.30 and as per our original agenda it was time to move on to the next location and it was only 3 of us. So I started calling the remaining 4 guys, 2 of them said they couldn’t make it because of some personal issues and the others said they are running late and will meet us at our 2nd location.

My initial plan was to run through some hotels which offer local menu, but decide against it when my friends suggested Panjabi food. I knew the perfect place to get Panjabi food at affordable prices. Chirangara is a hub for Panjabi food and there are 5 panjabi Dhabas currently operating and all of them offer good Panjabi food at an affordable rate. Their main clientele are the nearby college students and truck drivers. Even though all are known as Panjabi Dhabas there is only one restaurant which serves in the traditional Panjabi style – with ‘charpai’ ( A traditional Panjabi cot with wooden legs and coir mattress) instead of table and chair. Chirangara is around 6 km from Angamaly KSRTC station, out first stop and we reached Guru Dhabha within 10 minutes Mr Pradeep said they are on thei way and will reach us in 10 minutes. We took this time to explore all the Dhabha’s and to decide from which one we are gonna have food( Trying all of them was out of the question as the preparation time for these food was on the higher side).


By 7 pm our last set of participants arrived and it was a surprise package . We were expecting 2 local guides as told to us ,but Mr Pradeeep stood there with his family of four. Out of curiosity we asked about our 2nd local guide and he pointed towards his wife and kids. We made our introductions and it turned out that Mr Pradeep’s ID was used by his kids Ms Aparna Pradeep and Master Karthik Shankar. So there stood the youngest local guide I have ever met, a 10 year old boy who is currently at level 6 and still using his Dad’s gmail Id.

We chose Guru Dhaba for the main course and all of us settled into the place and resumed our conversations about Local guides. Both the kids(Aparna and Karthik) were having lots of questions about the recent changes to Local Guides program and how to contribute to the Local guides in an effective way. Mr Pradeep’s family is very fond of traveling and they never hesitate to try out a new food or place. We ordered Rice and different varieties of chicken and by the time food arrived we shifted the focus of conversation to places where we can get authentic local foods like Angamaly Mangacurry( Mango curry made with fish and coconut milk), Thalassery dum Biriyani ( A rice and chicken combo with lots of Kerala Masala), Kozhikodan Halva ( A swett made with Rice floor and fruit flavours) etc and all of shared our experiences in getting one of these local delicacies. Then unfurled an amazing journey by a family to taste Thalappakkatti Biriyani( A special biriyani originated at a place called Dindigul in Tamil Nadu State. Mr. Pradeep and his family decided to have Thalappakkatti biriyani one day and a normal lwould have gone to the nearest franchise to taste it, but instead they drove directly to Dindigul (birth place of Thalappakkatti biriyani) to have it. The distance was close to 300 Kilometer and i could never imagine a family with young kids traveling all this distance only for a Biriyani !

The Kids Karthik( 10 yrs old) and Aparna (16 yrs old) are using the handle Pradep here and Mrs Mini Pradeep is using the handle Lovecraft . Both the profiles are in Level 6 and Mrs Mini have the ambition and determination of attending the LG Summit soon. By the time we finished our food ended the conversation Mr. Pradeep created another ID for himself to participate in the Local Guides program. I wish a happy “mapping” and “connecting” to this wonderful local guides family and they have miles to go before sleep.

We ended the food crawl with a black tea from the adjacent shop and bid adeau to each other by 8.30 PM. I was hungry again by the time i reached Kalady, so stopped at the Dosa corner for a Masala Dosa as well. My stomach was filled with food and heart was filled with Joy and with that i went to sleep peacefully.

@user_not_found @Lovecraft

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@Attokkaran nice description of the evening events… Happy to see everyone there… :slight_smile:

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@Attokkaran

So nice of you for hosting the meet up of Kerala Local Guides .

Is very active in all mapping activities . We had the opportunity of making friends with same interest of serving others with information.

@StephenAbraham have supported us in all the planning and share the message in all communities .

AnilNambiar have spread the message in local News papers in Kerala .

This have increased the importance of our community . So many people joining with this meet-up .

Thanks Google for the opportunity

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@Attokkaran Nice and well descriptive recap of your wonderful experience. Hope you will host so many of such in the near future

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@ibnAmeer Thanks buddy.

@StephenAbraham Thanks buddy!

@Sariga I think Kerala Local guides were more active than any other local guides chapter for the WW Food Crawl !

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