Whenever someone mentions Indian food, the mind points towards a banana leaf meal. Yes, the meal designed by the folks from the Indian subcontinent to make you a slave to your tongue at first, then regret the whole episode after being reminded of how much calories had been taken in.

Clog, you damn arteries. CLOG!!!!!

One way to enjoy banana leaf meals is the traditional way. These can usually be very common in rural areas and not so much in urban areas because urbanites like me and you are lazy fucks and prefer to get a crappy catering service to open up a buffet line in your flat in the middle of KL with elevators that smell like piss. Yes, banana leaf meals require a helluva lot of work to be done, no doubt, BUT, the togetherness that comes with it is simply non-substitutable with any buffet line. The leaf is laid out, with your guest grinning from ear to ear. You start shouting to your cousin at the other end of the tent, asking him to bring in the vegetables. You proceed to dish out rice, while your guest says “Enough, enough….”, but you just go on, telling him to eat more this one day, and stop after he says “Enough” for the 14th time.

Your cousin arrives with the vege, and you go hunting for the curry bucket. On the way, you see your dad’s close friend washing his hand after the dinner. You ask him whether did he enjoy the food, then ask about his family, and say thank you for his attendance, all in 7 seconds flat before rushing to rushing to the guest you left behind with the curry bucket. Relatives and friends walk up to you saying that they had a good time, not to mention the good food. You are happy that everyone has eaten to their heart’s content. Though you are dog tired, it was all worth it. As soon as you’re done, you catch glimpse of the girl you’ve been having an eye on during the whole function. She walks past you, head lowered in shyness. You smile at her. She smiles back. You smile to yourself. That’s how traditional banana leaf meals are.

NOT this kind of Indian girl

And then of course you can head out to the regular curry houses which are aplenty all over town to get your fix of banana leaf rice. Just a reminder: eat with your hands. Don’t use cutlery on a banana leaf. You risk tearing the leaf. And it’s just not right. Just dive in with your hands. Get into the culture, as they say.

So these days the curry houses have a section where they’ll fry some meat and fish for you to be served piping hot. When you order something from there, make sure you tell them to add more “masala”. Just do it, don’t ask why. It is customary to have at least two helpings of rice. Most Indians are bloody gluttons whenever they step into a curry house anyways. After you’re done eating, swipe the leaf with your fingers and give it a thorough lick. No one would comment negatively if you pour a bit of chicken curry on an empty leave and proceed to have a lick-off.

Now, for all you non-Indians out there who don’t actually know what to have on your leaf before you start digging in, here’s a free tutorial.

1. Order your fried item before calling for the rice. Don’t choose the biggest fish there. Medium-sized and small-sized ones are tastier. Ask for more “masala“. If you’re getting fried squid or chicken, ask more extra onions as well.
2. The customary rice + 3 or 4 vegetable dishes. Pretty simple. It is advisable to take half the amount of rice you’re planning to eat. Reason to follow. You may opt for the healthier Indian rice (pu-lung-ge a-re-si).
3. The curry. You’ll have the usual one: dhal (sambhar), chicken curry, fish curry. Some shops sometimes have special curries stored away and they will only bring them out if customers ask for them. You may ask if they have crab curry (nan-du ka-ri), onion curry (ven-the-ya ko-lam-bu), or salted-fish curry (ka-ru-vaa-du ka-ri).
4. Divide your rice into 2 portions, and have different curries poured into each one to guarantee that you will taste everything. Once you’re done, ask for the second helping of rice, and proceed with different curries. Sloppiness is never an issue.
5. The condiments arrive. The regulars are papadam (ap-pa-lam in Tamil) and fried bitter gourd (paa-vak-kaa). You can also ask for the fried chili (mo-ru mo-le-ga). There’s also the option of asking for some “thovaiyal“, a spicy, minty, sour paste that you can eat with your rice.
6. Next on the list – yoghurt. Now, there’s two versions of it. One to drink, one to put on your rice. The drinking variety is called “moru” – yoghurt mixed with water, onions, coriander and some spices. A glass of iced moru on a hot day will do good for you.. The one that you put on your rice is called “tairu“. Tairu goes very well with any spicy curry, but fish curry leads the pack. A very common way of eating tairu is to mix it with plain rice, add a little salt, then having the “moru molaga” (fried chili) on the side.
7. You can also ask for some herbal soup – rasam. This will be served usually in a small tumbler and it’s quite spicy. Mix it up with your index finger and drink it, or pour it on your rice and eat with it.
8. Once you’re done wolfing down everything, fold the leave inwards to indicate the food was good (we still do that even if the food was bad coz we’re not a bunch of assholes).
9. Order a cup of BRU coffee. Not regular coffee. But BRU coffee. Every respectable Indian food establishment will have BRU coffee. If they don’t, you’ve obviously went to a bad place. Get your BRU coffee with cow’s milk if you fancy it.
10. Burp.

REMINDER: Woman does not come with the coffee.

Of course you can opt for other meals like the chapati or puri or naan. Then ask for some mutton varuval. Or mutton curry for that matter. Briyani rice is also an option for those who want to pig out on a completely different level. Don’t get your briyani at those nasi kandar shops where they only have the briyani rice laced with some herbs. A true briyani rice must be cooked with the meat in it, and should be served with the meat together.

Oh, there’s also this crazy thing among Malaysian Indians (or for any Indians for that matter) when it comes to eating mutton. We love to eat bone marrow. If your curry house offers mutton curry, ask them for a bone that you can suck the marrow out along with the meat chunks. Mutton curry is best eaten wit long beans or pineapple-cucumber salad. Don’t use a fucking straw to suck out the bone marrow lest you wanna be known as a pussy. You may bang the bone on your leaf (which of course is laid out on your table). People won’t mind. Really.

Bone. Delicious bone.

Indian food also has a wide array of sweets for those who aspire to be diabetic one day. Choices range from the halwa, gulab jamun, mysoorpak, jilebi, laddu, paalkova and athirasam (also known as ‘kuih peniram’ in Malay). You can almost always find these in established curry houses, but for better tasting ones, you can head to a shop that specializes in selling indian sweets.

“Laddu” inside your arteries. Awesome.

So that’s pretty much it about Malaysian Indian food. I’m just writing this because I’ve nothing else better to do at this point. I need a BRU coffee now.

PS: This post might seem to be biased towards South Indian food. That’s because I don’t fancy going to pimped out North Indian restaurants that charge RM 30 for a fucking small pot of mutton curry.

Related posts:

1. A Seedy Guide to Malaysian Indians – The Culture
2. A Seedy Word Known as “Keling”
3. More Malaysian Graph-ical Madness