Tips on Selecting a Outdoor Caterer for your functions and Events Ideal Caterers Kochi India

Established in the Year 1984, Ideal Caterers is one of the most successful and reliable hospitality, wedding catering and food servicing companies in Kerala, we continue to offer the most competitive prices around and are proud of the fact all our services are provided in-house.

Ideal Caterers cater to any type of private function including birthday parties, weddings, christenings, mehendi, corporate training meets and seminars, and many more.

Delivering absolutely lip-smacking delicious food, at your doorstep which is piping hot and ready-to-serve.

Selecting an outdoor caterer and why Ideal Caterers   

Making food for 5 people and 500 people needs different levels of skill set, and this is the simple reason why restaurant business is completely different from outdoor catering.  Most of our grandmother turns out to be an expert chef simply because of her experience and expertise, thanks to ideal caterers we have been in business since 1984.

Tips on menu selection
Things to keep in mind while deciding a menu for an occasion

Instead of seeing ideal caterers as a mere catering contractor for your special moments of you and your family, we would request you to see us a partner and a trustable friend who takes all efforts to ensure that your function/ event is a great success.

  • Number of Guest attending:  

This is the most important aspect of catering; all other decision will be based on the total number of guest.

  • Budget :

It all depends on your budget, trust on ideal caterers, we offer you the best value for your money.

  • Location

If it’s a house warming the menu should be different unless otherwise you have a lot of space at your home, if it’s a wedding attended by more than 500 people a venue should be selected accordingly.

If your guest are urban, semi urban and or rural home town kinds the food has to be selected accordingly, for eg, fried rice and chilly chicken may not be preferred by people in rural setting, also people in town has different eating patterns.

  • Type of guest (North Kerala (Malabar side)
    In a wedding if the guest are from Malabar region they may not like the typical food that is served in south central Kerala so we need to keep these points in mind.)
  • Type of function: Wedding, Housewarming, Engagement or Event each function has a different menu and service requirements.
  • Time: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner timing of the function is critical for egg: certain foods go well with dinner and not lunch.

How to design a menu.

Tough there are not fixed rules on menu selection few basic structure should be adopted. Any menu should have

Option1
Welcome Drink+ Main Course +Desserts

Option 2
Welcome Drink+ Bread + Curry+ Rice +Curry+ Fry+ Salads + Desserts.

Option3
Welcome Drink+ Starters + Soups+ Bread + Curry+ Rice +Curry+ Fry+ Salads + Desserts

A more extravagant menu can include

Welcome Drink + Starters + Soups + Breads+ Curry’s+ Rice + Curry’s + Fry+ Salads + Desserts.This can also include live counter which includes sea food counter tattu kada counter( with dosa, puttu kadala and kappa meen curry) in desserts you can have matka kulfi, chocolate fountain and sugar candy.

Service:

For any function for efficient service in a large scale catering, buffet is the best alternative however, if you want your guests to be served on table make sure you also add a part of the guest in buffet service.

It’s advisable that you do not keep the entire guests in table service as re-setting the entire table would take minimum of 20 min.

Also if the crowd is large, its advisable give a session before the Nikkah or Muhurtham as it would be almost unmanageable for any caterer to handle the crowd and the service would not be of standard as expected.  Guest tends to get restless as food gets delayed, so always have a buffet counter.

Menu combinations

Combi 1:
Welcome Drink – 1 Type,Fried Rice,Chilly Chicken,Chilly Gobi,Scoop Ice Cream,Cut Fruits

Combi 2:

Welcome Drink – 2 Types,Coin Parotta,Aripathiri,Chicken Roast/ Chicken Kadai

Veg Kadai,Fried Rice,Chilly Chicken,Chilly Gobi,Ice Cream Scoop,Cutfruits,Gulab Jamun

Combi 3:

Welcome Drink – 1 Type,Appam,Mutton Stew,Veg Stew,Pulao Rice,Chicken Korma/Butter Chicken,Veg Korma,Scoop Ice Cream,Caramel Pudding,Gajar Halwa

 Combi 4:

Welcome Drink – 2type Or Palchaya,Appam,Romali Rotti,Aripathiri,Chicken Rogan Josh/ Chicken Roast,Mutton Korma,Fish Kumarakom,Mutton Dum Biryani

Chicken Fry/ Tandoori Chicken,Pickle, Salad, Papad,Salads – 3 Types, Puddings – 2 Types,Ice Cream Scoop,Cut Fruits.

 Star Menu

Combi 5:

Welcome Drink – 2 Type,Palchaya,Live Starters – Crab Claw/Tawa Fish, Sesame Chicken Fry, Prawns Batter Fried, Cheese Balls,Thattu Kada – Live Dosas, Kappa Mean Curry, Puttu Kadala, Plantains,Kannan Pathiri,Kameer,Batura,Mutton Pepper Roast,Kuttanadan Duck Curry,Kadai Chicken,Brain Fry,Paneer Butter Masala,Channa Massala,Veg Kadai,Mutton Biryani,Tandoori Chicken – Live,Veg Biryani,Chilly Gobi,Baskin Robins Scoop Ice Cream,Payasam,Puddings – 4 Types (Caramel, Chocolate, Coconut, Biscuit Bread),Gothambu Verukiyathu,

Lunch Table Service

 Combi 1A:

Welcome Drink – 2type,Mutton Biryani + Pickle, Salad, Papad,Chicken Nadan Fry/ Chicken 65,Cassata Slice Ice Cream,

 Combi 2A:

Welcome Drink – 2type,Chicken Biryani + Pickle, Salad, Papad,Casatta Slice Ice Cream

 Christian Course Meal

Welcome Drink – 2types,Appam,Mutton Stew,Cutlet+ Salad,Rice,Fish Vatichatu

Nadan Beef Ulathu, Chicken Roast,Avial, Thoran, Kalan, Tenga Chammanthi, Chemeen Chammanthi, Kondatam, picle,Cassata Slice / Verities of Desserts as Buffet

Mineral Water Bottle

Author: Hisham Kabir
An MBA with 18+ years of experience, spanning senior roles across multiple industry verticals as an account manager with B2B Sales & Business Development in Events and Marketing, Food Buying sourcing and procurement, FMCG, New Product Development, F&B, Catering & Banquet, End to End Event Operations Management. LinkedIn sales navigator expert. LinkedIn helper2 sales automation and Zoho CRM. Extensive functional expertise in successfully managing end-to-end aspects of F&B operations spanning the front and back-office operations within budgeted guidelines and to the highest standards. People Management – Experienced in recruiting, training and managing F&B teams - Most recently managed a 50+ strong cross-functional team. Proven track record of managing 400+ catering events including numerous high-volume corporate and social events with more than 5000 pax. Further to MBA, completed a Management development programme in sales management from IIM which is among the leading business management school in India. Later ventured into independent entrepreneurial business by launching and retailing a ready-to-cook food gravy paste brand using retort technology called freedom kitchen. With significant insights into front-end retailing and a strong background in the Retail Industry, I shifted to Corporate Path by joining a food-based FMCG company as part of their rural market expansion.  My expertise is in operational excellence, channel sales development, team management, client relationship development, and Event Operations Management. large ticket banquet Management, Menu planning, costing and P&L, and people management. Driven by a passion for advertising have conducted an exhibition titled walk through the history of Volkswagen beetle. where I showcased several print ads released by Volkswagen Beetle in North America from 1958 to 1971. You can follow blogs on www.buyologist.in dealing with trends in marketing and advertising and behavioural economics.

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