We all have our favorite Little India haunts. Mine have long been monument essentials such as Banana Leaf Apolo, MTR, Komala Villas and Madras New Woodlands. I know – but Taiwanese, so… basic.
Little India, after all, is home to a multitude of restaurants, from mamak sarabat booths and salt-of-the-earth diners to European trattorias and trendy shops. There is no shortage of choice, but that surfeit of choices you get in the way of discovering the less apparent, more region-specific restaurants that thrive silently within this bright, cacophonic area.
To get a unique lens on the village, I roped in my companion Vasunthara Ramasamy, a personal dining restaurant and self-professed food techie who knows more about South Asian cuisine than everyone I know. With her taking the lead, we traipsed the village, skipping comfortable South Indian items in favour of foods from different parts of the continent.
The result of those jaunts is this little record, which may make for a great stop if you are curious to discover a different part of Little India and explore how the enclave’s title is brought to life in the richly varied flavors of the wider continent.