Kalam Restaurant (199 Kitchener Road, tel : +65 9653 5248) is right next door to Dindigul Thalappakatti Restaurant. We noticed them the last time we were here and made a mental note to come back for the food.
Ordered something called Mangalore buns that had description which sounded vaguely familiar. It was only when they arrived and the scent of banana and freshly fried bread wafted in that we realized we've had them before at MTR. They were known on the menu there as just 'buns'.
So same thick hum chim pang like textures, slightly sweet and faint taste of bananas. We could smell more banana than we could taste them. The little metal bowls were sambar, coconut chutney and shredded coconut with jaggery.
We had pongal. Warm, porridgy and flavoured with ghee. Nice. Those nuts on top were cashew.
Mango prawn curry. I'm guessing Keralan. Those mangoes lent a lot of tanginess to the curry that's akin to a strong hit of taramind/assam. Underlying the savoury sour warmth from the spices was a background sweetness from onions that was subtle. What's interesting was after having some of these, the sambar which was tangy started tasting sweet. The sour mango curry appeared to have caused the tamarind to fade into the background on the palate while the taste from the other ingredients became more prominent.
We also tried their neer dosa - another thing like those Mangalore buns we've had only once before at MTR years ago. This one appeared more rustic with textures that are more similar to rava dosa compared to the ones at MTR which appeared to be more refine looking. Like handkerchief. Same taste as my memory serves.
Pesarattu, a dosa made with green gram/mung beans. Reminded me of the green bean uttapam from Sri Rajya Lakshmi Narasimhan. Texture's less crisp than regular dosa. No green bean flavour as well but it was pretty savoury. Their mint chutney also doesn't appear to contain yoghurt.
Hot badam milk to end. Pretty solid almond flavour with saffron in this one.
