Arun Kumar, my newly found acquaintance at Port Blair recommended this place for me to eat. Located right at the end of the jetty, it’s open around 7pm for dinner and, like most places on Havelock Island, does multi-cuisine – whatever that means. I’ve had great seafood from this place the four times that I’ve been so far. The owner brings out plates of fresh seafood for you to point at and choose how to cook.

My first outing saw me greedily pick four large prawns, and when I mean large, imagine about double, almost triple the size of the largest king prawn you’ve seen and you have a good idea about what I’m talking about. Although costing 150 rupees each, they cooked them in some sort of masala salt on a bed of spiced rice, and the usual tomato, cucumber and onion mix. Absolutely delicious.

The second time I went, he brought out a plate of two large fish, and then what I thought were even bigger prawns. He called them bay prawns, and later realised they looked like mini lobsters also just as big that a person with large hands could carry only two in one stretched hand at a time. He barbequed these ones this time in a divine spicy tandoor paste, this time only accompanied by the tomato, cucumber and onion mix. I asked for some rice and he also brought a number of the daal and veg curries everyone else seemed to be tucking into.

The second time around, I chatted to him briefly about Mr Kumar referring me, joyously laughing at the business card Mr Kumar showed me. At the end of the meal, the manager proudly showed me the homemade BBQ at back. What a pleasure it was to see a kitchen – like rotis being made, a hollowed out concrete block fished with ashes acting as a BBQ and a number of busy staff preparing everyone else’s meal.

The most popular meal appears to be the thali served on a large metallic plate with either endless heapings of rice, or a number of rotis ordered on demand. Each table holds a trio of buckets, each filled with a different vegetarian curry – one I could tell was some sort of aloo (potato), another a distinctive daal (lentil) and the other one a very watery curry poured on the rice. Another bucket seemed to float around though I couldn’t work out what it contained. Some parties also ordered a side of fried fish, or some sort of chicken, both arriving on a tiny metal disc.

Details: Nala’s Kingdom
Found at: Jetty, Govind Nagar, Havelock. Beach Number 1, Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Contactable on: 03192-282233 or 9434290610
Highlights: Fantastic food that’s popular with the locals. I can’t highly recommend the BBQ (Tandoori) options especially when it comes to seafood such as lobsters or fish (I had both here). The masala salt prawns were absolutely divine and huge!
Room for improvement: Expect seating on plastic chairs and tables though they seem clean enough.
The Kua Rating: 7 out of 10