Malaysia Notes

KRISHNA Curry House, having served Petaling Jaya folk faithfully for over 20 years, has now marked its presence on the Puchong culinary map.

Opened in mid-September, the branch in Bandar Puteri Puchong offers authentic banana leaf rice, the mere mention of which conjures up a mouth-watering image of steaming hot white rice served on a large banana leaf with an assortment of vegetables for the customers.

A basic set of banana leaf rice – with four different kinds of vegetables, mango acar, moor milagai (deep-fried chilies), a cup of rasam and crispy poppadom – is priced at RM4.50 at the Krishna Curry House.
You can’t miss this: The eye-catching exterior of the outlet.

“Extra flavour is added when the heat from the rice touches the banana leaf,” said the outlet’s director, K.Kunabalan,

The choices to go with the meal are aplenty and one would not go wrong with Claypot Lamb Bone Marrow, Claypot Fish Curry, Sotong Sumbat and Crab Masala.

Kunabalan, whose mother R. Pushparani is the mastermind behind Krishna Curry House in Jalan P.P. Narayanan (formerly Jalan 222), ensures the freshness of the ingredients by choosing them personally at the wholesale market.

But it is the tried-and-tested recipes by Pushparani that draws the customers.


“The love for cooking is just in me. My mother introduced me to the culinary world and I played with the spices, mixing and matching them to come out with the best tastes,” Pushparani, 60, said.
A must-try: Sotong Sumbat is a spicy dish.

The spices – cinnamon, cumin, fennel, black pepper, coriander, to name a few are essential in Indian cuisine and Pushparani has them ground for the aroma and flavour.

The use of santan, according to Pushparani, is kept to a minimum.

For the Claypot Fish Head Curry for example, turmeric, candlenuts, small onions, ginger, garlic, cumin, tamarind and more are used.

Eggplant, lady fingers and dried tofu are also added in and the choice of fish is the ikan jenahak and ikan merah.

Crab Masala is another seafood dish that received the thumbs-up from the customers.

The sambal that coats the blue crabs is not too overpowering and the sweetness of the crab meat is savoured.

Sotong Sumbat is a combination of squids and prawns – the prawns are stuffed in the squids for extra kick.
Filling: A basic set of banana leaf rice.

The Claypot Lamb Bone Marrow raised a few eyebrows when Kunabalan suggested we sucked the bone marrow with straws.

“We have seen our customers doing that,” he said.

The jelly-like substance found in the middle of the bones is soft and chewy.

If there is still room in the stomach, appam is a nice dessert.

The freshly made bowl-shaped pancake served with sweet pandan-flavoured santan is crunchy on the outside and soft in the centre.

The outlet also serves Coimbatore Chicken Briyani, assorted tosai and roti canai, and made to order fried stuff such as chicken and fish.

As accountant-turned-restaurateur Kunabalan puts it: “Here, we stick to the authentic Indian cuisine.”


By THO XIN YI (The Star)