Radhey’s Heavenly Delights,
23-1, 3rd Mile Square,
151 Old Klang Road,
Batu 3 1/2, Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 011-200 17478 /03-7984 4001
Business hours: 12.00pm-3.00pm (lunch) and 6.00pm-10.00pm (dinner). Website: www.radheys.com.my
SADYA, a Malayalee feast, is an event keenly anticipated by many during Onam, a harvest festival celebrated by the Malayalee community.
The meal, consisting of rice served on banana leaf with a variety of not less than 16 vegetarian dishes, mainly made from coconut and yogurt is hard to come by nowadays. Even some Malayalee families find the preparation to be an arduous task.
Healthy: Four of the 24 dishes that will be served during sadya.Thanks to restaurants like Radhey’s Heavenly Delights, which is determined to bring the cultural flavours alive, feasting on a sadya spread is made convenient.
The restaurant has invited two chefs from Kerala to whip up 24 sadya dishes for five days in conjunction with Onam
Master chef Suresh Pallipatta, 47, is leading the team at Radhey’s, assisted by chef Sree Jith.
Chef Suresh from the Namboori Brahmin family has been cooking all his life; helping his parents who are also cooks and serving the royal family of Travancore, Cochin and Samoothiri.
He explained that the dishes also needed to be served in a specific order.
“Firstly, we serve pickles such as garlic, mango, lime and the must-have inji-puli (ginger-tamarind) on the top left side of the banana leaf.
“These will tease the tastebuds, before proceeding with a variety of chips placed on the top right. The sweet and salty chips are made of banana and jackfruit.
“Then, the vegetable dishes are served in a row. There are four main dishes, namely kaalan (made from yam, banana and yogurt), olan (made with kidney beans, pumpkin, green chillies and long beans), avial (a mixture of vegetables cooked with grated coconut) and eruserry (made with banana, yam, yogurt and grated coconut).
“Lastly, we serve the sweet dishes on the lower part of the banana leaf. A ghee-dhal gravy is placed in the centre before rice is placed over it,” he said.
Eating the meal itself requires a special sequence.
“The rice is mixed with the ghee-dhal gravy before moving on to the other dishes. Sambar, rasam and mooru curry (yogurt curry) are also served to one’s liking,” he said.
The appeal of sadya lies in the assortment of tastes the meal offers and the certainty that one will find a favourite dish, be it spicy, sweet, sour, bitter or salty.
Those who love all things coconut will also love this meal for the abundance of grated coconut and coconut oil used.
The restaurant’s inji-puli, a significant dish in sadya, tasted different than what is usually found in the city.
Chef Suresh explained that the tamarind used had been preserved for three years to give it an unparalleled authentic taste. The colour was also darker in comparison.
For a sweet ending to a hearty meal, a variety of pradhaman (dessert) is served during the restaurant’s promotion period, two of which are chakka pradhaman (jackfruit dessert) and mambazha pradhaman (mango dessert), which are not commonly found even in India because it is time consuming and expensive to prepare.
“The last time I cooked these two pradhaman was a few years ago and now I am making it specially for Radhey’s customers,” he said, adding that preparation for these dishes started in India, two weeks ago.
However, these authentic desserts may be too sweet for the Malaysian tongue. Only those with a sweet tooth can handle a full serving.
The Onam sadya will be available at the restaurant until Sunday.
Lunch is from noon to 3pm and dinner is served from 6pm to 10pm. Reservations are recommended.
The price is RM25++ for adults and RM15++ for children between five and 11 years old.
This is the writer’s personal observation and is not an endorsement by StarMetro
