PETALING JAYA, Sept 4 — It’s not often you find a restaurant serving authentic Keralan cuisine which accounts for why I was so excited when I stumbled upon Kaayal. Since I’ve never been to the tiny state that is located at the southern tip of India, I roped in my friend who has.
After a meal at Kaayal, she gave her thumbs up to the food, sealing my approval for this place.
The story of Kaayal starts with Keralan native Vineeth Manilal who moved to KL five years ago. Homesick for authentic Keralan flavours, he persuaded his brother-in-law to open a restaurant in Malaysia.
The name of the restaurant — Kaayal — honours the unique backwaters in Kerala, a network of lagoons and lakes just off the Malabar coast that is dotted with coconut trees and the ever-present houseboats or kettuvallam.
After six months in the business, his brother-in-law had to return to Kerala to manage his other restaurant but he left it in the capable hands of their Keralan chef, a young 30-year-old with 10 years of cooking experience under his belt.
It reopened for business this March with Vineeth’s wife, Shashina Netto, taking over the management of the place during weekdays. For the weekends, you will see Vineeth and their other family members helping out at the restaurant.
At Kaayal, you will discover true blue Malayalee food as the spices are all specially brought in from Kerala to keep things authentic. As the land is blessed with coconut trees, you find that there is an abundance of coconut milk, grated coconut, toasted coconut and even coconut oil used in their cuisine.
In The Essential Kerala Cookbook, Malayalee cuisine is described as a coming together of three different traditions — Hindu, Christian and Muslim. Other influences from the Dutch is evident with appam, a variation of Dutch pancakes albeit with coconut milk.
The Portuguese are believed to have introduced puttu and a creamy stew made with seafood, vegetables and coconut milk known as molly. For our first visit here, we sampled the Fish Molly, where the fish is not fried but stewed in a delicately flavoured golden yellow coconut sauce that has hints of cardamom. It’s absolutely delicious with hot plain appam together with a creamy vegetable stew lightly flavoured with curry leaves.
One of Kaayal’s specialties is Fish Pollichathu. As Vineeth explains, in Kerala, it’s prepared using a black pearl fish or karimeen, but here they have replaced it with red snapper.
The fish is first fried with chilli powder till it is partially cooked. Subsequently, it’s covered with a spice paste made from chillies, ginger and shallots, and wrapped in banana leaf. Coconut oil or velichennam is drizzled over it to give it a fragrant aroma of coconut and it is steamed in a flat bottomed circular brass vessel that keeps the heat even during cooking to allow the spice paste to infuse the fish. According to Vineeth, the vessel was brought from his home in Kerala and it was part of his grandmother’s wedding dowry!
You get different kinds of puttu or steamed rice cakes served here, including one with jackfruit! An unusual one is Erachi Puttu where the steamed rice flour is layered with fragrant tender meat marinated with masala. Back in Kerala, it’s usually served with beef but in Kaayal mutton is used instead.
It’s not often you see duck on the menu of Indian restaurants but the feathered fellow is one of the staples in the Keralan diet since it’s bred in the backwaters. Try the Duck Mappas and we reckon you will be hooked on this standout dish with its delicious gravy even though the boiled duck meat tends to be a little tougher than I prefer.
The base of the dish uses an onion gravy that has tomatoes, ginger, chillies, onions, coriander powder, turmeric powder and garam masala, which is cooked over a low heat until it’s fragrant.
For Sunday, you get a specialty known as Kappa Biryani where a mixture of soft boiled tapioca is cooked with meat whether it’s chicken or mutton. Tapioca was introduced during a famine in Kerala many years ago and since then it’s became part of their diet.
It definitely makes a change from eating rice as the soft tapioca is enhanced with the light flavours from the spices and the meat. If you prefer, there is also Malabar Biryani where items like rice and meat are cooked separately and assembled together just before serving.
On a daily basis, Kaayal serves a thali set for lunch with 10 items. You get Puli Inji (ginger tamarind chutney), mango pickle, Thoran (long beans with grated coconut), Aviyal (carrots and vegetables cooked with coconut milk), Rasam, Sambar, vegetable of the day, yoghurt and a choice of fish or vegetarian curry.
There is also payasam, a must for Vineeth who believes passionately that this creamy dessert either made with rice or vermicelli is essential for every meal. There will be two vegetable dishes that changes every day, the Thoran and the vegetable of the day.
On that day we sampled their thali, the vegetable of the day was a lip-smacking fried bitter gourd with toasted coconut slices. Keeping the Malayalee tradition, all the vegetables are lightly cooked and have delicate flavours.
Wash down your meal with the incredibly refreshing Kaayal special juice. It’s a combination of frothy lassi flavoured with lime, ginger and spices. We guarantee you’ll want a second glass of this once you have tried it. If you prefer a more savoury drink, they also do a frothy yoghurt drink with a mixture of spices, green chillies and ginger that is perfect with your thali meal.
From September 14 to 17, Kaayal will be celebrating Onam by serving a sadya (feast in Malayalee) for RM25. The festival celebrates the annual return of the well loved demon king Mahabali that was banished to the underworld.
Served on a banana leaf, sadya is a scrumptious feast. In the old days, they used to prepare a whopping 64 dishes for sadya but nowadays people usually serve fewer items. The version served at Kaayal has 25 items including the various pickles and curries. You also have two types of delicious payasam to enjoy, Ada Pradhaman made with rice cakes and Paruppu Pradhaman made with lentils. For more details on what’s on offer for their sadya, visit Kaayal’sFacebook page.
Kaayal Restaurant
No. H-G-2, Jalan PJU 1/45, Aman Suria, PJ.
Tel: 03-7886 4498/011-40043639.
Opens daily: 11am to 11pm.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaayalrestaurantPJ/
