KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 22 — Last year, a friend took me to try a Keralan sadya for the first time.
We had the meal as part of Onam, the annual harvest festival that is a significant part of Keralan culture and, in Malaysia, is celebrated largely by the Malayali diaspora.
Until then, the ignorance fuelled by my English-speaking-Chinese-upbringing all but guaranteed that the existence of this festival, and the distinction between the broader canon of Keralan cuisine and our Malaysian-ised, remixed and heavily edited interpretation, “banana leaf”, remained completely foreign to me.
But somewhere between the first hit of tangy injipuli (a spicy and sour pickle made with ginger, tamarind and jaggery) and the sweet, glassy bite of sharkara upperi (deep-fried Nendran banana cubes coated with jaggery syrup and spices), I was hooked.
There was a whole world of spice and excitement beyond the bog-standard, suburban “banana leaf” I grew up eating. I just had to go find it.
Enter Daawat, located on the ground floor of the Kingston Hotel (formerly the Corona Inn), at the corner of Jalan Tong Shin and Tengkat Tong Shin.
The restaurant has been around since 2017, which makes me quite late to the party — quite fitting, all things considered.
Daawat, which translates to “feast” in Hindi, specialises in Kerala and Malabari cuisine (the latter referring to the wider Malabar Coast, encompassing Kerala, the Kanara region of Karnataka, the Kanyakumari region of Tamil Nadu, and the southern tip of Goa), alongside Northern Indian food.
The focus here, however, should firmly be on the former.
For lunch, the menu offers a variety of Malabar biryanis, which originate from the city of Thalassery, a longtime trading hub in northern Kerala with many Mughal influences, hence the presence of biryani.
But I opted instead for a Traditional Kerala Meal (RM17), a vegetarian set that comes with soft, short-grain rice — most likely Kerala red rice — which was a joy to eat even on its own, topped with sambar and accompanied by five dishes.
The first two to be served are an onion chutney and pickled onions, followed by avial, a thick, coconut-based vegetable stew, identifiable by the tough skin of drumstick pods, or moringa, and its dry texture — a hallmark of Keralan-style avial.
The remaining two are a fluffy cabbage thoran, stir-fried with grated coconut, and a beetroot pachadi, bright pink and cool from the yoghurt. Off to the side of the leaf are a spicy, sour rasam and, for dessert, a way-too-sweet payasam.
Proteins in Keralan cuisine can include fish, chicken, mutton and beef (yes, beef), but its location on the Malabar coast means fish and seafood tend to feature more prominently.
Meen pollichathu is a popular fish dish, typically made with karimeen, also known as pearlspot, the state fish of Kerala.
The fish is pan-fried before being covered with a thick masala, typically consisting of onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, and chillies, then wrapped in banana leaves and grilled.
The last step, in particular, is visually reminiscent of the classic French technique, en papillote, except here the spice, flavour and fragrance are dialled up to the next stratosphere, which I like.
At Daawat, the Fish Pollichathu (RM35, market price) uses tenggiri (Spanish mackerel), but it is completely unrecognisable beneath the blanket of masala concealing it. Holy smoke, it’s awesome.
The Prawns Coconut Fry (RM26) is another seafood-based dish, featuring prawns stir-fried in a thick spice paste with strips of slightly hard coconut flesh.
It looks and tastes very much like chemmeen ularthiyathu, a Keralan dish of stir-fried prawns with coconut strips, known as thengakothu in Malayalam, in a thick spice mixture heavy on coriander powder.
It may not sound like it, but the Travancore Kozhi Perattu (RM24) will be more familiar to most than one might expect.
It is essentially a variation of chicken peratal, though unlike the reddish curries Malaysians might be used to, this is much darker and drier, likely from the liberal use of black pepper, which is the predominant flavour throughout the dish.
When it came time to wash down the last few spoonfuls of thick, addictive masala, my gut was already bursting at the seams.
The payasam was a cloying, sickly sweet end to a thoroughly filling meal, but I will definitely return — between the fish moilee, pothu varattiyathu and porichu varattiya kozhi, there are simply too many compelling options to ignore.
Restoran Daawat
Open daily, 7.30am-12am
Tel: 017-847 9761
Facebook: Daawat Restaurant
Instagram: @daawatrestaurantkl
* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
* Follow us on Instagram @eatdrinkmm for more food gems.
* Follow Ethan Lau on Instagram @eatenlau for more musings on food and occasionally self-deprecating humour.
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