Kerala cooking is among the most distinctive in India, and eating in Kovalam offers both the tourist-adapted version and, if you seek it out, the real thing. The cuisine is built around coconut — coconut oil, coconut milk, grated coconut — combined with black pepper, cardamom, mustard seeds, and curry leaves. Fish and seafood are central; Kerala is a maritime state and the daily catch drives what is cooked.
The dishes worth understanding before you order: karimeen pollichathu is pearl spot fish, a freshwater fish from the backwaters, marinated in a masala of shallots, green chilli, and turmeric, wrapped in a banana leaf, and pan-fried. It is one of the signature dishes of Kerala cooking and appears on most restaurant menus in Kovalam in a sea-fish adaptation. Fish molee is a mild coconut milk curry with pomfret or kingfish — creamy, turmeric-yellow, and good. Appam (lacy rice flour pancakes with crisp edges and a soft centre) served with stew is a common breakfast.
The rice served with everything is Kerala red rice — short-grain, reddish-brown, and nutty in flavour — rather than the white basmati found in north Indian restaurants. The difference is significant and worth knowing about before you complain that the rice "tastes different." It is supposed to.