Spice Junction

I have been to this restaurant a few times. Its great for real authentic good food. Appams and dosas are good which should be tried with the mutton stew (not spicy). The kerala Malayali cuisine is as authentic as it can get. Kappa (tapioca) & Meen (fish) curry is good & spicy. So is their mutton fry with coconut chips which you can have with good parota (roti canai). The biryanis are not worth the trouble.

They serve the standard range of drinks both alcoholic & non alcoholic. The menu has had an overhaul recently but then again most are still the same items. Hence it could be boring after a few repeated visits.

Service is friendly and fast. Can get crowded during weekends and during festivals such as Onam. Clientèle are mostly Malayali expatriates who long for some home type of food but that doesnt mean that the restaurant does not get local diners looking for good food.

Overall a good place but sandwiched between Muthu's curry and Gayatri Restaurants, it can be easily missed.

Kerala is a lush green beautiful coastal state in India, and is very famous for its cuisine - especially the non-vegetarian dishes and sea food specialties. Spice Junction does total justice to the Kerala cuisine with its authentic taste and uncompromising use of ingredients and cooking style.

The typical (read, touristy) Indian restaurants in Singapore offer a plethora of 'attractive' curry-based dishes, which normally leave an oily yellow stain on your fingers and a heavy undigested sensation in your tummy. Eat as much as you want at Spice Junction and you will still feel a perfect satisfaction without all these 'unhealthy side effects'.

Be it the traditional Malabar Biriyani made in jeeraka champa rice or flaky and non-oily Kerala Parotta made to perfection, be it the traditional chicken curry (kozhi varutharacha curry) or deep fired mutton coconut fry... everything tastes like how it's made back home. Head down to Spice on a weekend and enjoy the 101% authentic Kerala lunch buffet. A full non-veg (3 dishes) + veg (many) + payasam (dessert) spread served with brown or white rice and naan is just 13$.

Much to the delight of non-veg loving Keralites like me, Spice has recently introduced the traditional spicy beef delicacies as well. Every time I down it with a glass of cold Sambharam, I feel like being taken back in time... all the way to Trivandrum, my home town.

Are you a lover of good healthy authentic food? If you haven't been to Spice Junction yet, you're really missing something. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

There's only one other place where I've tasted Kerala food cooked any better than at Spice Junction. Needless to say, that's at my home... my Mom's culinary magics.

Well, I succeeded.

I 'encouraged' my colleagues to do our annual Deepavali lunch at Spice Junction (mini yay). They were planning on Go India but I did the smart thing of pointing them to some of the Go India reviews here, especially about the buffet and my job was done. (Oh no, what if they read my 'I'll get my colleagues to Spice Junction' review! Argh!)

Anyhoo, we are a group of 18 so we made reservations early and even got out of the office early to make our 12.30 slot. The restaurant was fairly full but we pretty much took up one whole section. The standard long table, except it looked reeaallly long.

Everyone HAD to wear something Indian and the girls, actually, babes really turned it on. The Indian colleagues looked...well, like they had just arrived from India while the Chinese gals really looked the business. Very pwetty in their shawls, Indian tops, bindis, cleavage...Ha.

Nice.

We settled down, got some drinks going...everything from strawberry lassi to India's beer, Kingfisher. All good.

Then the mega orders started. We pretty much ordered the house. Everything from Chicken 65, Butter Chicken, Mutton Vindaloo, Vegetable stew, Fish curry, some Prawn sambal thingy, to Pepper Paneer (hey, where did that come from? Heh) with briyani rice, normal white rice and prata.

The food arrived soon and EVERYONE couldn't get enough of almost everything. The girls who do the usual bird like eating were like going from 'Who wants to share a prata?' to 'I want a prata for myself!'. It was quite a sight. And by the end of lunch, we had pretty much licked dry some of the plates/dishes. I kid you not.

There was a smoke break of sorts (more babes than boys smoke in our office - sigh) before we started on desserts.

Again, we had everything and this time while most agreed that Indian desserts should come with an insulin jab or a heart monitor, everything disappeared magically yet again.

While the general consensus was that lunch was a mega success, the top 5 rated items were as follows:

1) Mutton Vindaloo - spicy shiok feeling with tender mutton pieces
2) The prawn sambal thingy (didnt check the name, it's the most expensive prawn item on the menu)
3) Butter Chicken - standard Indian fare done without the jelak feeling
4) Pepper Paneer - second time around and still like first love
5) Chicken 65 - would make for a great beer snack...we ordered like 7 plates of this!

We were still singing the praises (in-between spice burbs) as we made our way back to the office. And you won't believe this! The girls actually ordered a huge Old Changkee takeaway less than an hour later for tea! What the..!!!

I had a blast (er, might feel a blast when I go to the loo this morning). A thoroughly enjoyable lunch at what must be one of my favourite restaurants along Race Course Road now. Heightened by Indian-garbed colleagues who served up great eye candy along with some good 'ol fashioned Indian-like gossip *wink*

Yappy Deepavali indeed!