Banana Leaf Rice at Kanna

Once in a while, we indulge in some banana leaf rice with Splashie Boy's friends, Mr. G and Mr. KS and the place we always go to is Kanna,Petaling Jaya. It used to be their lunch hangout but since everyone has shifted, it is now the meeting point for dinner.

In Malaysia, the Indian food we usually get is from South India as the Indians migrated to Malaysia during the colonial times to work at the rubber plantations. Being a multi-cultural society, their food has become part of our landscape. Usually banana leaf rice is served from lunch time onwards. It resembles a buffet of all sorts where they will place a banana leaf on your table as your plate. Then the waiters will start doling out the food, first comes the fluffy white rice and the daily vegetables. They are usually quite standard such as diced cucumbers and pineapples, cabbage or spinach. You also get some crispy poppadums with your meal. They will also serve you a variety of curries and dhall that is poured on top of the rice.

To accompany your meal, you can order some deep fried food to go with it. Usually the ingredients are all pre-marinated and you will just pick whatever you fancy. Depending on each restaurant, they usually have chicken, fish, fish cutlet, quail, cuttlefish, crab, fish roe and etc. They will deep fry it and serve it to you.



Top Left: Crab, Top Right: Fish
Bottom Left: Fish Roe, Bottom Right: Wok used for deep frying

You can also choose to have some pre-cooked curries with your meal and to round it up with some dessert of jellies and Indian sweets. Incidentally when I started taking pictures of the food, the waiters all got super enthusiatic and kept coming up with these platters asking me to take their pictures!



This is one of my favourites, the Sotong Goreng (Malay for deep fried cuttlefish). It's cuttlefish mixed with cut onions, chopped chilli padis (small little chillis) and curry leaves.



This is the standard order for us, the Ayam Goreng (Malay for deep fried chicken) which is marinated in their special sauce.



Here's the banana leaf, full of rice with curry and the vegetables are in the background. See the yummy poppadums at the side. They also serve a soup called Rasam which is quite sour to accompany the food but we usually don't take it. It's supposed to help you digest your food.

Once you are done with your food, all you need to do is fold your banana leaf into half. There is a way you are supposed to fold it, you fold it towards you or away from you depending on how satisfied you are with the food. Not sure which way is the right protocol though so maybe someone can enlighten me on that. Usually people eat their rice with their hands but you can also eat it with a fork and spoon.

Kanna Curry House
No 29, Jalan 17/45
Section 17
46400 Petaling Jaya

Tel No: 03 - 7958 4814
(Opened from 7 am to 11 pm daily)

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here is entirely based on my personal tastebuds and may vary for others. The reviewer also declares that she has not received any monetary or non-monetary compensation from the restaurant for writing this review.