Saravana Restaurant - Malacca, Malaysia

On our second day in Malacca, our friend took us to an Indian restaurant. First I thought it was just an Indian restaurant like the few ones that we have been to in SF Bay Area. But this one was clearly different from we walked in. First we noticed plates and plates of cooked dishes on display. Just like those fast food where you get to choose either a 2 item combo or 3 item combo. Our friend looked at the dishes and asked the guy there about some dish which apparently was sold out. In the end she ordered a few dishes then we moved to the adjacent room which turned out to be an air conditioned room. 

When we were all seated, they placed banana leaf in front of us like a place mat. Then another guy came with bucket of rice. Make sure to stop him from placing too much rice on your banana leaf. I noticed some other guy in another table got big heap of rice in front of him.

After the rice guy left then the next guy came with 2 buckets. I meant really metal buckets with handle. One contained vegetarian sauce and the other non vegetarian. He scooped some sauce and dumped it on my rice. I guess you could start digging in if you just want economy rice. Because they also provided some condiments with the rice. Four type of condiments - pickled cucumber, beets curry, chickpeas curry and potato curry. I just called it curry because they were cooked with spices.

But ours were the deluxe version. That's why our friend stopped by the dish counter earlier - to get additional dishes. In the end we got some fried fish in tamarind sauce. spicy tofu, fried anchovies and chicken with red sauce.

All in all we had lots of fun eating on banana leaf. Growing up in Indonesia, in the past some vendors used to use banana leaf as the inside lining for take out food. But these days this practice has been abandoned. I think banana leaf is not as practical as the packaging paper.

Saravana Restaurant

Jalan Bendahara, Kampung Bukit China, 75100 Melaka, Malaysia