Love Mom Restaurant: Home cooked Sri Lankan flavours, all the way in Klang

KLANG, March 27 — The story of Love Mom Restaurant has its origins in a personal tragedy for owner, Paramaswari Nadasan, 66.

About 30 years ago, Auntie Paramas or Mummy as she is known to everybody in the area started her own business known as Klang Curry House as a single mother with three children.

Stricken by grief when her son passed away about five years ago, she turned to Bai Shi Yin Guang Li Jiang Ke Ji Yan Jiu Yuan, a movement that believes in the power of the positive light to remove negative energy and enhance positive energy. As she healed, she started this new venture that takes its name from her nickname. She also set up a centre for the movement upstairs of the restaurant.

The star of Love Mom Restaurant is their appams.

The dishes here are cooked according to family recipes handed down from her Sri Lankan mother. It’s a mix of Sri Lankan favourites and also Indian dishes. Auntie Paramas was one of seven siblings who helped out in the kitchen. She recalls it was a lot of fun, as each of them undertook various tasks like giling or tumbuk the spices for the dishes. When she turned 16, she started to earnestly learn how to cook from her mother.

Her customer base is an extensive one with families who have grown up eating her food since her days at Klang Curry House.

The restaurant also hires old folks to give them a second chance in life.

Everything they use to cook their dishes is made from scratch. For instance, they prefer to grind their own chilli powder. Even the spice pastes are made in-house rather than relying on the commercial packets.

The food cooked at the restaurant also uses the water that is believed to be blessed with positive energy. Auntie Paramas also scours areas like Pandamaran and Meru for her vegetables rather than relying on commercial sources since they are of better quality. An organic farm also delivers to her vegetables like sawi, brinjal and ladys’ fingers at reasonable prices.

This type of putu is made from atta flour (left). There is a choice of three types of putu; rice, millet or atta flour (right).

The star of the restaurant is undoubtedly their divine appam with crispy edges encircling a soft creamy centre, just like how the Sri Lankans prefer. “I call the appam dangerously good,” she said. Cooking the appam is a test of patience and requires the utmost care since the fermented rice batter is cooked in small pans over a tiny flame. There’s three varieties here: plain, sprinkled with brown sugar or with an egg.

For a light lunch, opt for chapati with curry and dhal (left). A popular Sri Lankan item is minced shark meat cooked with turmeric, grated coconut, curry leaves and spices (right).

It’s hard to choose which one to order as they are all delicious. The egg appam is best paired with vegetable curry for a savoury taste, while the other two variants are delicious paired with a cup of Bru Coffee. The aromatic coffee is brewed from the popular Indian instant coffee powder with its distinct chicory taste. Here the coffee tastes really smooth thanks to the use of a New Zealand brand of milk.

Breakfast is a choice of idli, vadai, chapati and puri. You can also pick up vegetarian nasi lemak bungkus, if you fancy a quick meal-to-go. Roti canai, thosai and appam are available throughout the day and prepared upon order. Putu is also served in a choice of three variants, made with rice, millet or atta flour. These can be eaten with brown sugar, mashed bananas or just curry.

The lunch selection at the restaurant is available from 10.30am onwards (left). Their homemade mango chutney is made with apple mangoes (right).

The lunch spread starts from 10.30am onwards to around 2pm or later. It’s set up buffet style with vegetarian dishes on one side and the meat dishes grouped in another section. The showstoppers here are the minced shark meat, mutton varuval, chicken curry and bittergourd salad. The mutton varuval is mouthwateringly aromatic as Australian mutton is cooked until it’s fork tender with spices and curry leaves. You also get the pleasure of digging through the bones for the much sought-after bone marrow.

Another fast favourite is the aromatic chicken curry. Our favourite pick is the refreshing bitter gourd salad or kariwila sambol based on an old Ceylonese recipe. Here slices of fried bitter gourd (they use the smaller sized vegetables) are tossed with tomatoes, cucumbers, chillies and onions. The whole thing is subtly dressed in a mixture of lemon juice and salt.

Look for Love Mom Restaurant for homecooked flavours.

Auntie Paramas who is vegetarian also recommends that it be eaten with bread as a light sandwich. Look out also for the homemade mango chutney that uses apple mango, a type that is not usually found commercially.

With its homecooked flavours, Love Mom Restaurant stands out among the other restaurants making it worth your while to brave the journey to Klang.

Love Mom Restaurant, 12, Lorong Menalu, Taman Chi Liung, Klang.
Tel: 03-3381 2053.
Open: 7am to 7pm (Tuesday to Friday), 7am to 3pm (Saturday and Sunday). Closed on Mondays.