Our group dined in Koshy’s jewel box for lunch on a Saturday in Jan 2011. Our high expectations fell flat. For starters, we ordered Smileys, Eastern fried Chicken, Kerala style fried pork, ham sandwiches (see photo) and a dish of batter fried prawns.Smileys-fried discs of mashed potato- one of Koshys popular starters, are a tasty snack, and they do this well regularly. Eastern Fried Chicken, though eye-catchingly presented with a hollow lighted vegetable in the centre, was unfinessed-an oil fried cliche. Ham sandwiched which the ’times food guide’ says is the best in town was unremarkable, lacking any distict taste or flavour.Prawns were cooked well, but again not upto finedining standards.the pork fry was an atrocity, with meagre portions, unappetizing texture, fat-laden, plonked into a small steel dish and priced at Rs.273 -many ’working-class’ hotels would dole out the same for Rs.73.
The price was not the dominant issue- I’ve eaten at Olive beach happily, its the quality of food and service thats woefully mismatched with the tariff. For Main course, we selected Koshys special Cheese baked Chicken, Veg Au Gratin and Chicken fried rice.The first 2 dishes are not chef-standard by any means, cheesy concoctions which can double as baby food. I’m eager to praise good food, but here I got very limited chances to do so. The Chicken fried rice, was well-cooked and tasty but it’d have to be the best fried rice in the world to make up for the earlier disappoinments-which unfortunately it wasnt! The service was distinctly inattentive, callous and arrogant even.We waited (!) several times nodding and signalling the waiter to grace us with his attention, but apparently in this jewel box , the waiter is King! and they n the cooks dont sweat the small stuff.On one occasion, the suit-clad steward told us"why do you want the menu?. it’ll take too long. just say what you want from what I’ve told you about"!. My companion was shocked!
As we were very hungry, we’d have liked to order more food, but the appalling service convinced us that this is not a hospitality-based restaurant just an attitude flaunting one thats coasting along on its already built reputation.We decided to have dessert in some other place which respects its customers.The bill for 6 of us was Rs.2400 inclusive of taxes and including the few drinks we ordered.The Veg cutlet I previously tasted in Koshys Parade Cafe, the next door joint, was a big hit but there too, the waiters like to play hide n seek with the customers.As for Koshsy Jewel Box you get the idea.The times food guide which has been very helpful to me was alas not so in this case.