[Kuala Lumpur] North Indian delights at FLOUR, Plaza Damansara

Talented restaurant duo, Yogesh Upadhyay and Natasha Ng, have put together perhaps the best North Indian restaurant which Kuala Lumpur has seen in recent times - well-prepared dishes using carefully sourced, freshest ingredients (the paneer was even made in-house) which absolutely burst with flavours. It’s a spice temple which is perhaps KL’s most phenomenally well-kept secret.

Start with a rich, generous mango lassi:

Food is served in sets of curry + bread at FLOUR. Some of the options we had were:

  1. Rogan josh (lamb curry) served with naan.

  1. Paneer Butter Masala, served with kulcha (sesame roti).

  1. Ajwaini Baingan (spiced baby eggplants), served with puris.

Whole baby eggplant.

  1. Vegetarian kofta balls, served with laccha (layered roti).

Vegetarian kofta balls.

  1. Masala chai (boiled spiced milk tea).

  2. Suji halwa, a delicious, addictive semolina dessert, gently spiced.

  1. Aamras (mango puree), served with puris.

  1. One half of the talented duo running FLOUR - the vivacious Natasha Ng.

Address
FLOUR Restaurant
71, Jalan Medan Setia 1, Plaza Damansara, Bukit Damansara, 50490 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 12-221 4066
Operating hours: Monday 11.30am to 3pm (lunch only, closed for dinner).
Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat & Sun 11.30am to 3pm (lunch), 6.30pm-10.30pm (dinner).
Friday - Closed.

5 Likes

Yogesh Upadhyay, the executive chef extraordinaire at FLOUR - a perfectionist and stickler for authenticity.

Love the naans here, light, chewy and flavourful

1 Like

Back to my favourite Indian spot in Kuala Lumpur for dinner last week. FLOUR has undergone some refurbishments to its main dining room - with dark walls and slick black furniture, giving the place a more “formal” feel compared to its brighter ethnic-chic look previously. Owner-chef, Yogesh has also revamped his menu, introducing some interesting new items whilst ensuring that authentic Indian flavours are maintained.

We started the evening with a strawberry lassi and some hot masala chai milk tea:

  1. Cold, whipped paneer on crackers - the ice-cold bursts of creamy cheese truly awoke our tastebuds here, to prepare us for the meal ahead.

  2. Pan-fried foie gras with ginger, mint leaves and tamarind - THIS . WAS . SINGULARLY the tastiest dish I’d had (of any genre) in a long while. The foie gras was perfectly cooked, the subtle sweet-sour tamarind-accented drizzle offsetting the creamy-richness of the foie gras, whilst the ginger strips and mint leaves provided the Indian “accent” to the dish.

  3. Goan prawn curry - ultra-fresh prawns, bathed in an oniony-tomatoey curry sauce. It went perfectly with the flatbreads.

  4. Lasooni gosht - mutton on-the-bone, in a spiced garlic curry, with cream and cashewnut paste - this was a very robustly-flavoured stew. For me, it was a bit too assertive to be eaten at the same meal as the Goan prawn curry (which I very much preferred - strictly personal tastes here).

  5. Paneer butter masala - I am a paneer junkie, and this one is as good as it gets. Chef Yogesh mentioned that he made all his paneer in-house.

  6. Chicken biryani - this dish bore no resemblance whatsoever to the greasy, robustly-flavoured chicken biryanis one usually gets in Kuala Lumpur from the Indian eateries. FLOUR’s biryani is all-fluffy basmati rice, subtly-spiced with a gentle fragrance from the aromatic spices used.

  7. Ajwaini Baingan - grilled baby aubergines, with ajwain (carom/caraway) spices

  8. Clockwise from top-left: Laccha, kulcha and tandoori roti

Desserts:
9) Gulab Jamun

  1. Chocolat aux épices The chile truffle was amazing.

Dining in FLOUR is always an eye-opener for many people here on how subtle and refined Indian cooking can be. Chef Yogesh and his kitchen continued to produce some truly amazing flavours here.

3 Likes

Back to FLOUR last Monday, this time to catch the tail-end of its Tunday Kebab promotion which runs till the end of Nov.

  1. The Tunday Kebab has a rather charming story about how an old toothless nawab who hankered for meat challenged his chefs to produce a meat kebab soft enough for him to chew with his toothless gums. They did, and came out with a pâté-like meat patty (traditional “tunday kebabs” use buffalo meat, but its close cousins, the “galawti kebab” and “kakkori kebab” used lamb) which did not compromise on its meaty flavours. This all happened back in the 19th-century, but the dish has gotten finer and softer throughout the centuries, and is now considered one of the culinary gems of Awadhi cuisine, perhaps India’s finest. Ancient texts told of a mind-boggling 160 types of spices which went into making the meat patty (are there even that many types of spices in existence?!).

Irregardless, FLOUR came out with an amazing rendition which I’d never expected to find in Kuala Lumpur (I’d had “galawti kebabs” in Delhi, India, and Lahore, Pakistan, which are similar in preparation & cooking techniques). The version here produced by Sous Chef Balli was a plump, soft mahogany-coloured lamb-meat patty encasing a Greek yoghurt centre that lent a sourish spike of flavour to undercut the richness of the meat pâté. This was one of those dishes which you wished could go on forever.

  1. Paneer tikka - I’d had lots of tandoor-roasted paneer tikka elsewhere before, but this was the first one I had where the thick slices of paneer cheese were served interspersed with same-shaped slices of fruit: pineapple, pear, etc. They were moist and deliciously fruity.

  2. The next dish we had was quite interesting - Bhap Aur Mitti Ke Tikka, described simply on the menu as chicken cooked in two different styles: steamed and tandoor-baked. It was presented like a long seekh kebab which had been cut into small portions, and looking much like stuffed roulades with beetroot centres for the tandoor-baked ones. The steamed little discs of chicken roulade were topped with mango puree.

  3. The next dish we had was the pièce de résistance - a tandoor-baked Spanish baby leg of lamb, which was no bigger than a turkey leg & drumstick. I’d had baby leg of lamb like this in Barcelona’s La Boqueria before - so small as the lamb had not been weaned off its mother’s milk yet. Over here, the leg of lamb was marinated in two types of peppercorns, black and Sichuan, no chilis. The meat was served with Kashmiri-style potatoes, which reminded me somewhat of Olav Dude Legit, a turmeric-tinted, lightly-spiced potato-and-yoghurt dish I had in Pakistan-ruled Azad Kashmir a few years ago.

  1. Chicken Biryani - this was truly phenomenal, and is my favourite biryani dish in KL: fluffy, beautifully-scented and subtly-spiced. It was served with a side dish of yoghurt relish that was absolutely not necessary.

  2. Dessert was the usual Gulam Jamun and a lightly-warmed Suji Halwa semolina cupcake, accompanied by a pot of hot chai (milk tea).

Satisfying meal as always. Still my fave Indian restaurant in the country.

3 Likes