When my friends, Gard and Olav were in KL, they were excited about trying some chettinad food. Their hometown, Stavanger, had one indian restaurant which served predominantly northern indian fare. When it comes to Indian food, I like to eat at Saravana Bhavan which is located a couple of doors away from Anjappar. But I chose not to go there this time as Saravana Bhavan serves only vegetarian meals, and I wasn’t sure how it would go down with my Norwegian friends.

We all chose to have the banana leaf set meal which consisted of a good portion of rice, and little stainless steel receptacles containing different kinds of curries, dhall, vegetables and yoghurt. Eight charming little containers per person. We also ordered side dishes of chicken and mutton and several different types of bread.

I generally don’t order tandoori chicken because I have had some nasty experiences with some really dry chicken that would put a sanitary napkin to shame, so I was pleasantly surprised that the tandoori chicken here was sufficiently moist and full of flavour.

After the meal, we ordered Bru coffee with fresh cow’s milk. The coffee is normally sweetened (translated: very sweet!) and is served in a stainless steel tumbler and davarah (saucer). There is an art to drinking coffee that is served in this manner. You can pour your steaming hot coffee into the davarah to cool it down (presumably due to the larger surface which allows the coffee to cool down faster), then drink the coffee either from the tumbler or the davarah.

Anjappar
No. 56, Jalan Maarof
Bangsar Baru, KL
Tel: 03-22881508