Curry Leaves Indian Cuisine

FOOD

Goat Chettinad and eggplant theeyal give you good reason to explore the Curry Leaves weekend buffet beyond butter chicken. The published selection changes weekly, bringing regional meat and vegetable dishes together with starters, egg biryani, salads and desserts. It is an inviting arrangement for anyone who wants a familiar favorite and a few new things to try. There is room for both on the same plate, without making lunch an examination in Indian cuisine.

Eggplant theeyal is a particularly interesting place to start. Curry Leaves prepares its house version with baby eggplant and shallots in roasted coconut gravy. That gives the vegetable cooking a distinct regional identity and offers an alternative to the tomato-based sauces elsewhere on the menu. If eggplant usually gets only a passing glance on your way around a buffet, the roasted coconut is a good reason to pause.

Paneer lababdar takes a different approach. The restaurant’s recipe combines Indian cheese with bell peppers and onions in tomato-and-cream gravy. It offers a meatless option with its own substantial centerpiece, rather than asking vegetables to serve only as accompaniments. Alongside the theeyal, it also illustrates how varied the vegetarian choices can be: different principal ingredients, different sauces, and plenty of reason to try more than one.

Butter chicken remains part of the attraction, with a house recipe that includes bell peppers, onions and honey in its tomato-and-butter sauce. That touch of honey is a useful detail for someone who knows exactly how they like their usual order. Goat Chettinad adds another meat and regional style to the selection. You can remain perfectly loyal to butter chicken while finding room for a little goat. No formal declaration required.

The starter choices include chicken koli vada, chilly gobi and oven-roasted chicken wings. Gobi brings cauliflower into this part of the meal, while the roasted wings offer another chicken preparation alongside the curries. Egg biryani contributes a seasoned rice dish with eggs, giving the spread more variety than chicken and goat alone. Together, these choices let you build a meal with several different preparations, rather than filling every available space with sauce.

There is more to explore among the vegetables and lentils. Curry Leaves describes its karahi vegetables as stir-fried with spices in a traditional Indian wok. Aloo mutter masala combines potatoes and peas, while dall palak brings lentils and spinach into the selection. These dishes broaden the meatless possibilities beyond paneer. Garden salad and baby corn salad are also listed, offering another direction for anyone who wants something alongside the hot dishes.

The buffet has previously included fish moilee and chicken varutharachathu, further examples of the kitchen’s Kerala interests. Its house moilee uses salmon with coconut milk, turmeric, ginger and garlic; varutharachathu is chicken in roasted coconut curry. Coconut milk and roasted coconut give these two dishes distinctly different foundations.

For a sweet finish, the published rotation includes semiya payasam and fruit custard. Semiya is the vermicelli version of payasam, a pudding associated with feasts and celebrations in Kerala. It is a fitting dessert for this kitchen’s regional roots. Fruit custard offers another option, and there is no particularly compelling reason to make dessert an either-or decision.