A Li Yaa Restaurant & Bar

Pick of Jaffna flavours

February 10, 2020

IT’S been 2 years since the first Jaffna Food Festival to commemorate its 10^th anniversary and A Li Yaa is planning the second Jaffna Food Festival – Culinary Journey to Yalpanam (the original name for Jaffna).

To be held over three days from February 17 to 19, the festival menu promises to be as tantalising as the first.The first was such a success that customers kept asking if there’s another one, says its marketing manager Janaka Ranjana, adding that “again, there will a spread of over 50 dishes, with new items we want to introduce to our customers”.

Executive chef Siva Suppaiya is feeling upbeat and excited. He and guest chef Dr. Parvathy Kanthasamy have been putting their heads together to create the new dishes. 

Dr Parvathy using the batu giling to make Mint Sambal and introducing the new dishes for the festival

Originally from Yalpanam, Parvathy is a linguistc professor who now resides in Canada but visits her restaurateur son regularly in Kuala Lumpur. In fact, she is the brains behind the kitchen at A Li Yaa, so you can expect family favourites liberally punctuating the menu.

Mint Sambal, prepared using the batu giling

I watch as she demonstrates making Mint Sambal the old fashioned way, with a batu giling. Though she's been cooking since she was a young girl, Parvathy's not a stickler for going by the book. “I love experimenting and I do incorporate new ingredients into old recipes such as rosemary, thyme, mint and coriander which are not traditional Sri Lankan ingredients,” she says, throwing a bunch of chopped mint and peeled garlic on the batu giling.

Beetroot Varai

She then makes Beetroot Varai, sauteeing julienned beets and sliced onions with spices and curry leaves. The end result? A refreshing side salad dish with all the health benefits of beetroot.

Aracha Kulambo, mild curry using swordfish

These and Aracha Kulambo, a mildly tangy swordfish curry, are new items for the event. The fish curry is excellent with string hoppers.

Gottu Kolla is a healthy, refreshing side salad using pennyworth as the main ingredient

I try Gottu Kolla, a salad made with shredded vallarai (pennyworth) and grated coconut. It is both nutritional and refreshing with a minty flavour. Finely chopped shallot, green chilli and a dash of lime juice add another level to the taste.

Jaffna Eggplant Sambal

Oh, I just love the Jaffna-style Eggplant Sambal! The thin slivers of eggplant are deepfried and tossed with caramelised onion, chilli, tomato and curry leaves. Perfect on its own with a swig of beer or a sip of wine.

Fish Cutlets are bursting with aroma and flavour

Fish cutlets are served piping hot, with the exterior deepfried to a crisp and a golden hue. Be careful of escaping steam when you take the first bite. Forget the chilli dip provided. The flaked fish filling, with onion and chilli, is flavoursome and spicy enough to stand on its own.  

A Li Yaa offers rice, roti, appam, puttu and string hoppers to go with the curries.String hoppers are great with mutton paal poriyal, which is slow cooked in a well-balanced combination of spices. Tender and scrumptious.

Have roti with Fish Sothi, cooked in coconut milk with lemongrass, garlic, shallots and curry leaves.

That’s not all you will find on the table for the Jaffna Festival.  Vegetarian options are on the list too and I’m looking forward to Jaffna Crab Curry, cooked in a sauce as exciting as it is dark and guaranteed to be finger licking good. Janaka says there will be both Sri Lankan Mud Crab and Blue Swimmer Crab on the buffet spread. 

A Li Yaa's Sweet Appam is a customer favourite

I’ll be saving tummy space for Sweet Appam as dessert. A Li Yaa’s sweet appam has a fluffy, moist heart from the generous lashing of coconut cream in the centre. The edges are perfectly crisp and the centre is dotted with sprinkles of brown sugar. 

As I fold the soft centre over the crisp edge and pop it into the mouth with a sigh of satisfaction, Parvarthy watches me with a hint of amusement. “We usually peel off a bit of the crisp edge and use it to scoop up the soft centre,” she says.   

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ALIYAA RESTAURANT (pork-free)

48 Jalan Medan Setia 2

Bukit Damansara,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Telephone

+6012-444 1310

Opening Hours

Daily. Noon to 11pm

Promotion

Jaffna Food Festival - Culinary Journey to Yalpanam

February 17-19

Lunch: Noon-2.30pm

Dinner: 6pm-8pm and 8.30pm to 10.30pm

Price

RM148++ per person 

THE STICKY WICKET

Time for some wicket cocktails

August 23, 2019

Friday evening. In view of the coming weekend, My Best Friend and I share similar thoughts… a wicket... I mean wicked… cocktail seems to be in order.

Erhhmm…pardon the pun but after all, we’re in The Sticky Wicket where mixologist S. Roy is shaking up a roller-coaster of cocktails for us.

Naturally, the cocktails are naturally named after professional cricketers from throughout the ages, such as K.S. Ranji, Mark Ramprakash and Liton Das to Albert Edwin, Chris Gayle and Gilbert Aessop.

I love The Record Breaker (RM48), named for George Griffin. It’s a combination of Beefeater, elderflower, honey infused beer, pineapple juice and fresh grapes. So fruity and delicious.

From left, Whiskey Sour, Dickie Bird, Record Breaker, The Light Bowler and Somerset

I particularly enjoy Whiskey Sour which shows the right attitude in the well-balanced mix of whiskey, sugar and lemon, with just the slightest tinge of bitterness.

If you’re a cricket player or cricket fan, The Sticky Wicket is the place to go. If you’re not, don’t worry. It’s still loads of fun, especially if it’s cricket season.

Walk in and you’ll see cricket paraphernalia lining the walls while sports programmes play continuously on the many large television screens. If you want more privacy, head upstairs.

The comfy lounge upstairs

Cricket originated in south-east England in the 16^th Century but over the years, its popularity spread to the British colonies all over the world, especially India and South-East Asia.

Ouch! The tummy’s growling in protest. It’s been hours since lunch, so we ask for a menu. We see a list of dishes from countries where cricket is popular – Britain, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Australia and Canada. Yes, these include Cullen Skink, a Scottish smoked seafood soup, Fish & Chips, Toad In The Hole, Springbrock Boerewers, Crab Kottu and Eton Mess.

Actually, the menus for food and drinks are great conversation pieces. I am tickled by some of the names here such as Howzat Poriyal, Dolly Chick and Fried Leg Stump.

Delicious chicken poutine

We start with Poutine (RM26, chicken/beef). For this delicious Canadian specialty, fat fries are generously doused in a gravy cooked with pulled beef brisket or shredded chicken and topped with cheese. The Sticky Wicket presentation adds a sunny-side egg on top. In between chomps, MBF and I agree that the chicken poutine is better balanced in flavours.

Calamari with  house-made Salted Egg Yolk dip

Gin & Tonic with a slice of grapefruit

Then we have Salted Egg Yolk With Calamari (RM35). The basket of thick rings of deepfried calamari are crisp on the batter coating and juicy inside. The house-made salted egg yolk sauce is delicious, with that slight gritty texture that comes from real egg yolk. Leaning a little on the more salty side, it’s perfect with beer or, in my case, a gin tonic (when in a pub for cricketers, drink what cricketers drink).

Also great with drinks is Crab Waugh (RM20), with chunks of soft shell crab battered and deepfried to a crisp and tossed in salt and pepper. And it’s a “straight run” with the addition of curry leaves and chopped chilli padi.

Hot and spicy Soft shell Crab Waugh is perfect with drinks

The Sticky Wicket Beef Rib Burger

For mains, we start with The Sticky Wicket Beef Rib Burger (RM42). I don’t take beef but MBF is delighted to find, instead of the regular beef patty, a wow factor in the shape of braised beef short rib in between the burger bun, along with caramelised onions, rocket leaves and a mac’n’cheese waffle. Comes with thick fries.

Fried Leg Stump

Fried Leg Stump (RM32) – somehow I keep seeing images of Long John Silver, the pirate – turns out to be a deboned chicken leg, panfried to golden brown and served on a bed of mashed potato/mushy peas, with mushroom sauce, salad greens as well as buttered cauliflower and carrot sticks. It has a strong flavour of rosemary, so beware if you’re not too fond of this.

Quintessentially British Fish & Chips

For Fish & Chips, a British staple, we have a choice of cod (RM60) or pollock (RM36). We pick cod; there are 2 slabs of white fish fillet with a basket of chips. The beer batter coating is crisp, preserving well the sweetness and moisture of the delicate fish. On the side are two dips of mayonnaise and mushy peas.

Springbok Boerewers 

Springbok Boerewers (RM69) is not meant for the faint of heart. A full 500g of pure chunky meat (in this case, beef) sausage comes coiled and sizzling in a cast iron pan, drowned in a spicy curry sauce, with waves of thick cream on top.

Crispy Lamb Shank

The Crispy Lamb Shank (RM58) is unusual. While lamb shank is usually soft braised, The Sticky Wicket offers a new perspective by a quick dunking in hot oil to make the outside crispy. The shank is then served on herb-infused mash and what the chef calls “naughty bean sauce” which actually has baked beans.

The hearty Full English is also available for Weekend Breakfasts

After much discussion, we pick The Full English (RM38) for the final hattrick. Also available for Weekend Breakfasts, this is a whole wooden bat topped with 2 sausages, sautéed mushrooms, panfried tomato, buttered and panfried bread, beef bacon, baked beans and two sunny-side eggs. There’s enough chow here to satisfy any growling tummy.

Sticky Date Pudding with melted toffee and cream

After all this food, we are hesitant about dessert. But The Sweet Taste Of Victory beckons, so we have Sticky Date Pudding (RM22) and Sweet Appam (RM8) to share. The pudding is light, moist and springy in texture. Laced with sticky melted toffee, it’s perfect when served with thick cream.

Sri Lankan sweet appam also comes with an ice cream option

The Sri Lankan appam is a circle of crispness surrounding a soft centre sprinkled with coconut milk and gula Melaka. If preferred, customers can have it with a scoop of chocolate ice cream though I’d recommend having it the original way as the chocolate ice cream confuses the flavours somewhat.

Happy mixologist S.  Roy

Tummy appeased, we retreat downstairs to make S. Roy mix up more cocktails at the bar. His new creation, The Light Bowler, has raspberry syrup with extract of fresh rosemary, gin, sugar, lemon and egg white, which he finishes off with dabs of angostura bitter and a flower on top.

Dickie Bird (RM39), named after Harold Bird, is a crisp mix of Monkey 47 sloe gin with Campari, Yorkshire Tea syrup and fresh apple and lemon juice.

The jury (or is it umpire?) is still out on Somerset (RM29). MBF loves it, saying it smacks of apple pie. But this is where I beg to differ, not having a love for apples or cinnamon and Somerset has an overindulgent, lingering aroma of the bark spice. The drink combines fresh green apple juice with organic apple cider vinegar and cinnamon syrup.

Love gin? Sticky Wicket stocks over 25 types of gin and its house pour is Beefeater which is RM9.80 during the Happy Hour which is noon to 7pm daily and all day Sunday. I can see I’ll be quite happy here.

There are also 2 Gin Buffets. Choose from brands such as Beefeater, Ungava, Opihr, The London, Boodles, Tanqueray, Roku Gin and West Winds at 3 glasses for RM60++ or 5 glasses for RM95++.

The premium Gin Buffet comprises Rutte, St George Spirits, Bitter Truth, Hendrick’s, The Botanist, Gin Mare, Poli 1898 and Citadelle at 3 glasses for RM75++ or 5 glasses for RM120++.

 

THE STICKY WICKET (pork-free)

34 Jalan Medan Setia 2

Plaza Damansara, Damansara Heights

Kuala Lumpur

Telephone

+603-2011 5378

Website 

www.stickywicket.pub

Opening Hours

Monday to Thursday: Noon to 2am

Friday: Noon to 3am

Saturday: 9am to 2am

Sunday: 9am to 1am

Happy Hours: Noon to 7pm daily and all day Sunday

Promotion

Sticky Wicket also serves set lunch menus that include soup and a glass of iced lemon tea or lime juice. Items include nasi lemak, nasi goreng, pulled beef burger, chicken salad, fried leg stump, fish and chips, beef bacon linguine carbonara, chicken chop linguine in basil-pesto sauce, chicken casserole and a spicy vegetarian fried  rice.

On Saturday and Sunday, Weekend Breakfast, from 9am to noon, offers choices including Eggs Benedict, Avocado Toast, The Full English, Scotch Egg, pancakes, burrito, South African Lamb Curry, Sri Lankan Breakfast, Idli Tiffin and apam.