To Me Food Is More Important Than How or Where It Is Served - Jay Menon

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1. Tell us about your background and journey.

I am a lawyer by profession. I did an LLB and MBA in HR, born and brought up in Ernakulam and did all my education in Kochi itself. I got to eat different foods, and experienced various food cultures when I started working in and around India and other countries.

Food has always been a force that kept filling my emotions with love and till date it has never disappointed me .

2. Which is your favourite cuisine and dish?

Being born in a typical Hindu family with vegetarian parents and relatives, my non veg food experience took lot of time to come into the picture. 

My achan used to take me to ceylon bake house, at Ernakulam, and their chilly chicken & idiyappam is what amazed me on how tasty food can be and that’s how I started loving non veg food. The typical kerala cuisine is what will be my favourite, though I have tasted most of the national and international cuisine.

3. Should food blogging be just a passion or can it become a regular career?

Food blogging by itself is of phenomenal usage. It has flourished as a career internationally, it requires knowledge on food and the various aspects of food , raw materials, labour involved, price determination and quite a lot of factors that blend together to come up with the beauty called 'food on our plate'. 

Yes at the moment, it needs more time in India for a food blogger to gain recognition but it will be a career option once the influencing part is justified by actions of a foodie towards their followers. 

Nowadays, a food blogger does get a lot of attention in restaurants but it is not a financially viable option yet. Yes it will happen in the near future especially when people are being truthful towards their reviews and the people who are following them start trusting them.

4. Which restaurants/food joints(any) would you recommend to food lovers?

I am a person who roams around kitchens of small time street food vendors to Star hotels. To me food is more important than how or where it is served, I never look at the health aspect as long as food is tasty. 

Which is not something that everyone should be vouching for but I do my regular exercise and have a check on portions I eat. So recommending a few restaurants is not right on my part because I would recommend certain dishes from certain restaurants rather than a place as a whole. 

For instance, Erachi podi from Palaaram is amazing, Beef curry of Matha hotel a road side hotel in Thammanam is beyond perfection, Beef fry of Yuva fast food is amazingly well made, buffet of Four Points Sheraton is my favourite, Fish Mango curry of Paragon really sends my taste buds on a roll .

5. What makes you appreciate a particular dish or a restaurant and talk about it on your blog?

I have experienced some dishes which are plated so well, but as soon as you taste it, the wow factor goes missing. If the food doesn’t satisfy my taste buds, I will never write about them. I usually don’t write bad about any food because I don’t think anyone will make any food thinking. 

"Let me make some bad food", so it is basically some miscalculation that makes the food bad. So I avoid writing about it and I make sure I talk to the restaurant people and express my displeasure or view point.

There are certain restaurants like Cafe 17 run by Praveen, who bring in the "I am at home" feeling when you visit a restaurant, I have had bad food from there and he immediately makes amends and gives us that happy customer feeling which makes me want to go there again.

6. Is there a dish you particularly associate yourself with?

Beef, I had it for the first time I joined Rajagiri school. I was 5th grader and their canteen had this beef roast and fry for Lunch, which was truly Love at first bite. 

I have nicknames like Beef Menon, Beefettan, etc because of this unconditional love for beef, especially when Beef is with porotta, love is in the air!

- Jay Menon

  IG: foodiemenon

- Amruta Liz Binoy