banana leaf

Vishal Food & Catering BLR, Brickfields

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Vishal-BLR

I got recommendations from 3 separate people to try Vishal BLR (banana leaf rice) after my previous post on the best lunch spots around Brickfields. I did a bit of Googling and heard a lot of positive things about them. Thus, I roped in my colleague and went to check it out just now. My office is in Menara 1 Sentrum but getting lunch partners interested in Indian food is a bit of a hard sell. The workplace is predominantly Chinese, and we usually go for Chinese food.

Vishal-Me

However, I’m a huge fan of Indian food and two of my favorites around here are Husen’s bombastic onion chicken and Singh Chapati House. I’m also going to Singapore in a week’s time and I booked 1 Michelin star The Song of India to check out their Deepavali dinner.

Vishal-Banana-Leaf

I decided to see if Vishal would impress. It certainly has its legion of fans. Vishal BLR is a 9 minute walk from my office, which is at the upper limits of how far people are willing to go for lunch. The furthest place we’ve been is 2 minutes less than this.

Chicken-65

I was told to get the fish cutlet and the “red color chicken”. Thanks June…that’s very helpful. 🙄 It’s not like most Indian chicken dishes are red. Hehe. She later clarified it looks like tandoori chicken and it’s fried, so I think I managed to get the right one. It’s Chicken 65 but I later found out this was the wrong red colored chicken. It wasn’t anything special.

Fish-Puttu

I also got some fish puttu, which is minced baby shark fried with egg. This tastes exactly like the dai chow shark’s fin and egg dish they serve at old school Chinese restaurants. The one you wrap in a lettuce before eating. It’s very plain. I expected more from Indian food. It didn’t make me go doo doo doo doo in joy.

Stringray

My third selection was stingray cooked in a sour sauce. “Eh, how come this dish sour one?” my friend squinted suspiciously. I also noticed she didn’t eat the stingray after that first bite. The flesh of the stingray was overcooked and rubbery and the sauce wasn’t the best I’ve had.

Vishal-Brickfields

I want to say that the flavors are beautiful and inviting. That it’s a symphony of seasoning on my palate. Or probably a Bollywood tune since it’s Indian food. That the distillation of spices and aromas into a song-and-dance in my mouth with lots of loose-flowing saris and grinning men doing the Indian head bobble on my tongue is a magnificent experience. That it was a “10/10 groomed mustaches” experience.

Vishal-Food-Catering

Unfortunately, I found the whole experience rather mediocre. Worst still, I felt like I have wasted my calorie allowance by eating this BLR. The prices are quite reasonable though – RM 6.20 for the rice with refillable veggies and curries and around RM 6 per small plate of protein. But I probably wouldn’t ever return. Have you ever been to Flavortown? I have, and it’s not here.

Macha & Co Banana Leaf Restaurant

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Macha & Co Banana Leaf Restaurant

Macha & Co is the new place that just opened up in Kota Damansara a few weeks ago. I live across the street watched the renovations with interest. I was just talking about it with my better half last weekend. The restaurant serves banana leaf rice, which adds another halal option in addition to Sari Ratu Prima. I decided to pop in and see what they’re all about.

Macha and Co

I actually spilled all the fork, spoons and serviettes when I was eating here. The tables were a little close to each other and I was slightly clumsy and bumped into the next one, bringing the utensils crashing to the floor. The waiter had to clean everything and replace the tissues but he did it with good humor.

Banana Leaf Rice

This is the Banana Leaf Set Meal (RM 9.50). It’s the main dining option here and includes white or brown rice with 3 vegetables, 2 papadams, fried salted dried chilli, acar, rasam and curry/dhal. Banana leaf rice is usually a completely vegetarian meal by default. I like the peratal pumpkin and the deep fried bitter gourd.

Varuval Chicken

You can also order from a wide menu of tavams. I assume tavam means sides. They are various vegetable tavams, dry spiced tavams, curry tavams, seafood tavams. I went with the Varuval Chicken (RM 6.50) coz I like eating my rice with meat. It’s quite good. They also have more premium sides like Fresh Red Snapper Head (RM 68) and Black Pepper Peratal Crab (RM 22.50).

Receipt

The wait staff here is very friendly. I ordered a Diet Coke and they added a line which said “Terbaik bro” (The best, bro) to the bill. I thought it was funny but a little dangerous to have this system. I read about servers calling customers fat, racist names or other misc slurs in the United States appearing on the news. I used to work as a waiter in Melbourne so I know the kind of humor the restaurant industry has and I don’t think it’s a good idea to make custom order lines (that’s what its actually for) visible on the receipt.

Macha

Macha & Co Banana Leaf Restaurant also serves other items like roti canai goreng but their signature menu is banana leaf rice. The lunch cost RM 20.90 inclusive of drinks. There’s not a lot of people here yet, probably due to a combination of factors – parking is a problem and this area is predominantly Chinese. It’s located in Dataran Sunway so there’s a lot of competition and the F&B turnover is quite insane…for instance, both Flaming Melt and Sabah Kampung Beef Noodles has closed since we went. It’s pretty good though, I’ll be back to try the other items!

Jothy’s Fish Head Curry Banana Leaf Restaurant

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a.k.a. The Worst Fish Head Curry and Banana Leaf Restaurant in the Known Universe

jothys fish head curry banana leaf rice

Jothy’s Fish Head Curry Banana Leaf Restaurant is located in Api Api Center in KK, Sabah and has a lot of impressive stickers on its front window facade, including one that says “as seen in Lonely Planet”, which was the reason we headed there to eat in the first place. I place a certain amount of trust in the Lonely Planet brand.

jothys interior

The first clue that it might not exactly be the best place to eat when we walked in is the underwhelming crowd in the restaurant. We were the only ones there. I swear I could hear crickets chirping.

jothys banana leaf

Their banana leaf rice seems authentic enough…

jothys banana leaf rice

…but the taste did not live up to expectations. I tried every single one of the side serves and found them severely wanting.

jothys curry fish head

Their flagship signature dish – the curry fish head – was tough, overcooked and dry. It’s certainly not “the freshest fish head from the market”.

jothys curry fish head meat

I don’t know what kind of fish this head came from but finding meat is like looking for a needle in a haystack (or insert other cliched analogy here since there are a lot of fish bones in there).

jothys prawn

The fried prawns were not “succulent” as the menu claimed, but tough. I’m also highly doubtful about the “choice fish eggs fried to perfection” description as our fish roe had the same taste and texture of cardboard (not that I’ve ever eaten cardboard – it’s what I imagine cardboard would taste like).

jothys lonely planet

I find this unforgivable in a place known for it’s abundance of seafood. The bill was exorbitant too – the fish head curry alone was RM 50.

jothys herpes

It’s a tourist trap. Avoid it like a bad case of herpes.

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