My awesome tenth day in Kerala, India continued in the city of Kannur in the northern part of the state that afternoon and evening. Come along with me and my friends as we enjoy Indian street food in Kannur, including mussel tapioca, buffalo chili, and patel mutton in Kerala, India!
My afternoon began with a mini road trip from Kasaragod to the city of Kannur. We started with a visit to Sree Subrahmanya Swami Temple. It’s a famous walled Hindu temple in Payyanur and is one of the most sacred and revered sites in the Kannur District. The temple was closed when we visited, but we could visit the temple’s pond, which is home to lots of fish!
There’s a lot of puffed rice along the shores, which you sprinkle in the pond. The fish will swim up to get it! Some of the fish were huge—up to a meter long! They were big catfish! My boy Ebbin and I got a bag of puffed rice (20 rupees/$0.26 USD) to feed them. I threw a handful in. A bunch of them swarmed up and sucked it all down like vacuums! There were so many of them!
If you want to visit Sree Subrahmanya Swami Temple, you have to be Hindu in order to go inside. Even if you’re not Hindu, it’s worth it to see the temple walls and feed the fish.
We hit the road again and drove through Payyanur. There’s a world cup statue in the middle of the road there. People love football in Kerala! We stopped quickly by the side of the road to get some sugarcane juice. Ebbin and I both downed ours in one go. It cost about 60 rupees/$0.78 USD for three glasses and had a nice squeeze of lime in it!
We hopped back in the car and made it to Kannur City. There’s a museum and palace there, as well as a fish market. But we were there to eat Indian street food in Kannur! At the first stall, I watched the cook prepare puttu with beef, which is rice powder mixed into a beef curry containing small pieces of beef, chilies, and onion. On top, he added cucumber, lettuce, carrots, and more onion. It was grainy and unreal and was like the spiciest non-veg polenta you’ve ever had! The onions helped cool down the heat.
Then, saw a guy making ginger chai. There were similar vendors nearby, so we looked around to see what we could find. We found some tapioca with spicy mussels. Tapioca is super popular in Kerala. You can find it everywhere! They also made us some meter chai there!
The tapioca contained curry leaves. The mussels paired so nicely with the tapioca, which was super soft. It was really spicy with the chilies and curry leaves, and the onion gave it a nice crunch. The chai also paired well with the dish! It was so healthy because it’s not fried. I bit into a chili and immediately poured down sweating! It also only cost 80 rupees/$1.04 USD. They have 40 different tapioca combinations there!
After more chai, we headed to another neighborhood or popular restaurants to find more street food. The previous place was mostly stationary food trucks, but this was more like a restaurant. There, we tried mutton liver with patel, which is a Malabar dish mixed with mutton liver. They were making parottas, beef chili, and a lot more!
The beef chili is like a beef stir-fry with chilies and red chili flakes. You eat it with parottas. The parottas are crispy, layered, and flaky. The beef chili was so different—it was spicy, tender, and super juicy. I loved the red chili flakes. It was too good! The beef chili reminded me of a Chinese of Mongolian beef. It was both sweet and spicy! It was my favorite dish of the night and one of my top 3 street food / dishes in Kerala, period. The Indian street food in Kannur was blowing my mind!
Next up was the patel with mutton liver. Patel is almost like a puri and is cut into strips and mixed with the meat and masala and topped with onions. It was doughy and crispy and full of liver flavor. The curry had melted throughout the patel, which was doughy on the inside. It wasn’t too spicy, but the onion calmed it down.
The diversity in the cuisine was blowing my mind. With so many combinations available, you could easily have 100 different dishes. This is what I love about the Indian street food in Kannur. It’s never-ending! The liver cost 90 rupees/$1.17 USD, the beef chili was 80/$1.04 USD, and the parottas were 10 rupees/$0.13 USD each.
Then, we got some dessert to finish our night at Calicut Fruit Stall. There, we met everyone and started with fresh carrot smoothie, which was super milky and delicious! Then, we got some kadhi, a thick milkshake containing walnuts, almonds, cashews, sugar, and milk cream. It was a nutty, milky slushy and was nice and refreshing. I loved the crunch of the nuts! It only cost 80 rupees/$1.04 USD. I finished it up while taking some selfies with some fans!
We made it back to the Seashell Haris Beach Resort, which offers the best accommodations and restaurants in kannur. My buddy Roshan brought me a surprise to end the night—a one-liter bottle of Kingfisher Strong Beer!
I hope you loved coming with me to explore the Indian street food in Kannur, Kerala, India! If you did, please give this video a thumbs up and leave a comment below. Also, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and click the notification bell so you don’t miss any of my travel/food adventures around the world!
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