Today we're in Selangor, Malaysia, a state just outside of Kuala Lumpur and we're
trying a dish that you have to try when you visit Malaysia, South Indian banana
leaf rice so you get a banana leaf covered in rice, piled with curries and we're
with our friends who are from KL and they say that this is the best banana
leaf rice you will find in the KL area I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're
Chasing a Plate, we hope you're hungry, let's eat!
our friends have brought us to this really cool place called Sri Ganapathi Mess and
it's a really undercover restaurant because it's in a, in a house and there's
no signage out the front, we're now in sort of where we walk in, is the
kitchen so you can see there's all the pots and pans the serving being done and
there's little rooms and tables dotted everywhere so this is a really
undercover place and it's gonna be really cool to try this meal
we've each got a veritable feast in front of us, virtually as soon as you sit down the
staff come bubbling around and they've got their banana leaves and they've got
their containers filled with interesting curries and sauces it's so exciting
so you get given a banana leaf to begin with and the banana leaf acts as your plate
you then choose between white rice and parboiled rice, so I've got white rice
here and then you get spoonfuls of different things, we've got some fresh
cucumber, carrot and red onion here and then next to it there's some cooked
onion with some mustard seeds in a bit of a gravy and next to it we've got
bitter gourd I think it is in a thicker gravy there's some mustard seeds in there as
well and then next to it we've got some beans which have been cooked with again
mustard seeds and I think a lentil, some lentils in there as
well because it's quite thick, then on top of the rice we've got gravy I went
for chicken curry, Thomas has gone for onion curry, we've got this crispy poppadom
here which we're gonna crush up and add to our meal and then to go with all
of that we ordered some mutton curry, so mutton is actually goat and then some
crispy sotong or squid, we've also got some chicken rasam which is an Indian
soup to wash it all down with
so as Sheena mentioned I've got the same
spread as her except I got an onion curry, so the onion curry is the one
that they put on your rice so everyone gets all of these dishes that Sheena
explained but the one on your rice you get to choose and you don't have to
choose one you could choose multiple so I could have had the chicken and the
onion and the fish if I'd liked but we just got the one curry each so then we can have
more of the side dishes let's just dive in and try some of the onion curry, so
basically you just mix it all up because you want all the flavours to come
together and normally you'd mix it all through with all of these sides I'm
gonna try just the onion curry and the rice by itself to start with, oh yum, yum! It's got a
really really good spice to it like a really a spicy chilli tingle on the front
of the tongue that's really good the onion flavour adds a real sweetness to
the dish and it's got these big green bits in here which must be bitter gourd
you can see they're kind of bubbly on the edge so I'm just gonna try a bit
more rice with the with the gravy and then one of those bitter gourds
oh wow it's not nearly as bitter as I was expecting but it does add a little
bit of bitterness down the side of my tongue but that chilli on the front of my
tongue is an overriding like really hot flavour just spicy chilli bang that's
really really good it is so well-balanced sometimes a curry
like that can be a bit heavy on one thing or another but that is incredibly
well-balanced but now let's get in and lets mix everything together I'll have
just one epic mouthful to start off so we'll grab a bit of everything I'm gonna dump
it all in there dump the beans in there we've got these fresh vegetables for
crunch and freshness, got the papadum lets break a little bit of that off
we'll add some of that in too, just going for the full-on
flavour burst, mmmmm
the beans still have a bit of crunch and they're full of mustard seeds so the
mustard seed flavour really bursts, the fresh cucumber was very fresh that was a
really good taste and then all those sauces start to come
together and it just builds and builds so what will happen is we'll keep mixing this rice
more and more and then we've got the other side dishes the other curries, the
squid everything will be mixed together and create the most incredible flavour
look at this incredible crunchy calamari, there's also some onion in there
so I'm gonna grab a few pieces and dump it on my banana leaf so I'm ready to go
and then also we've got this mutton curry, it's cooked on the bone and it
looks pretty juicy it's sitting in quite a creamy looking gravy so I'm gonna grab
a piece of that as well, I love when meat is cooked on the bone because it often
means that the meat itself retains quite a bit of juiciness what I'm gonna do is
just try a mouthful of this rice with the chicken curry so let's give this a
go
mmm wow, that chicken flavour is quite strong but
the distinctive or most distinctive taste coming from it is all the spices,
really mellow, let's give this amazing looking calamari a go it's chopped so thin and
it's just got the bits of batter laced around the edges, it looks so crunchy
hmm oh wow that's some of the best calamari I've ever had, it's slightly
chewy crispy still from that batter wow that's so moreish, those onions too look
so crispy
again you can really taste that sweet onion flavour like Thomas talked about
how his onion curry really imparted a beautiful caramelised sweet flavour the
same with that crispy onion let's give this mutton curry a go, so I'm just going
to pull a bit of the meat off the bone you can see the meat has soaked up a lot
of that gravy and mix it in with my rice and try that
hmm, the meat still has a little bit of chew but it's very tender a lot of
stunning flavours, there's curry leaves in there, there's a red onion, there's just
really beautiful spice it's not that fiery, ah that's so good
we've also got a chicken rasam which is an Indian soup to wash it all down
with, apparently Sri Ganapathi Mess which is where we're having
lunch is really well known for its crab rasam but unfortunately they
don't have it today so let's give this chicken one a go
that's amazing, it's quite watery, but it's very pedas. Pedas means hot in Malay like
chilli hot and it's got a really strong chicken flavour, that's really really
delicious
I need to talk about this squid because it is so, so good I know
Sheena has already talked about it but it is incredible these very finely cut
pieces just lightly crumbed and then deep-fried the flavour is amazing it's super tender it's just got a
little bit of crunch that is incredible, it's probably the best squid I have ever eaten in my
life it's so good and the fact it has these onions so these very finely
sliced onions which are also mixed right through with the squid,
they're crispy on the edge, they're a little bit caramelised and they're in big
chunks as well so you can grab it like a whole piece
absolutely brilliant flavour like just salty enough, sweet enough, awesome
awesome dish
so I just finished my meal and I really
enjoyed it and this is what I'm gonna do, to show that I really like it and my
appreciation towards the cooks so I fold it this way
so make sure you always fold it towards you, not against you
you fold it against you when you do not like the meal but most of times we love it so we
put it this way
that was one great meal and we have to say a huge thank you to
Jean and Drake for taking us to that fantastic restaurant, remember details
are down below in the description so you too can find this place and don't forget
to hit subscribe while you're down there if you enjoyed this video please give it
a huge thumbs up thank you so much for watching we hope we inspired you to eat
and explore like a traveller, not a tourist, see you next time, jumpa lagi!