Little India – a different country in this country

We’ve been to Little India on three occasions now, first time when we pitched up in January for a look around, and subsequent to that we’ve been on our own and with some friends.

Banana Leaf on Race Course Road
Named of course because your food is served straight onto a green banana leaf from buckets of rice or curry.  It seems rough and ready but is far from it; yes the setting is simple with sturdy heavy trestle tables and benches lining the aircon restaurant but the furnishings are rich, red and gold.  Don't be fooled by the rough menu, just ask for some curry, rice and popadoms and you'll be taken care of.
It's not super cheap and a simple meal with a couple of beers ran to S$50 for the two of us and they do still supply you with cutlery! 

Jaggi’s at 34 Race Course Road
For excellent, flavoursome and no-nonsense food from the Punjab or the North of India, you can't go past simple Jaggi's.  There is again a coice of cutlery or fingers but it's totally up to you, just be mindful that there can be quite a line-up for the washbasin’s after you’ve finished. Tea urns or bottled beer caters for all sorts. It’s pretty loud when all the families get in and start chatting, but that you get entire families mixing together there says something about the ambience of the place. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a simple room, pretty rough around the edges but it’s all about the food here; simple food that tastes great.

Chapatis and Dhal are excellent as is the brinjal (or eggplant). The tandoor meats do get nuked to warm them for you on the spot, but they’re all freshly cooked that day.

Komala Vilas on Serangoon Road
I’d been there once, a long long time ago. It looked familiar when we’d walked past it on an earlier exploration of the gridded streets, I remembered the metal trays with inset sections for various sauces, dhals and curries and for the first time, eating with my hand.

Its still the same vegetarian fare with optional utensils and we take a seat, chewing on a handful of fennel seeds, the licorice taste and barky husks sticking to our teeth. The menu is pretty simple, well thumbed and curled around the edges, but the offerings are totally dependent upon what the kitchen is cooking today. On three occassions the attending guys had to run out to check whether we could get what we wanted.

Dosai, stuffed with vegetables and with three sauces to dip into. Vadai (pronounced wadai), a savoury donut that’s plain but you can dip into further sauces and an onion baji, which was the oddest looking baji I’ve ever seen. It was more a ring of onion inside a deep red bready type package that was deep fried.

Lady had a chapati derivative that looked like two doughy breast implants, puffed up like double Ds and full of hot air. She popped them with a spoon to release the steam and then ripped them up, using them to pick up the rich chenna masala and vegetable curry.

For four of us, the bill came to S$30. It wasn’t a huge meal, we had the equivalent of a small main each, a small drink and two masala teas and it sounds very reasonable doesn’t it. It was a quick cheerful meal, so in that respect, yes it was pretty cheap for four of us. I think the comparison to what we’re used to is that it didn’t include any meat, which obviously is more expensive than veggies, and it didn’t include alcohol. So the lesson learned is that if you stick to the basics, you can eat very cheaply here. The added frills are where it gets you.

As an aside, while I'm talking about all this indian veggie food, in the back of a taxi to the airport last week I was watching an advert; some SG taxis have a small TV screen and internet hookup on the back of the front passenger’s head-rest. The advert-come-infommercial was about how to save the planet by becoming vegetarian, citing a number of stats about the volume of resources that cattle require in return for nutritional value of protein. On the strength of the food from Komala Vilas, I’d consider it, well maybe just a reduction of meat in my diet.

Shovel