Alora Spices, TTDI - Thokohmakan

[Pork-free] Restoran Alora Spices is a new Indian restaurant in TTDI.

Opened in Dec, Alora Spices serves banana leaf rice, pani puri, appam, and a bevvy of Indian dishes that are sure to tantalise the tastebuds.

Alora Spices in TTDI

TTDI is an area populated by many Indian restaurants – such as Jaipur Curry House, Yarl (actually Sri Lankan), and Big Singh Chapati.

Nevertheless, Alora Spices stands out with its offering of banana leaf rice and spicy dishes that span from Colombo to Chandigarh.

We visited Alora Spices on a Saturday morning and found an extensive menu – offering breakfast delights such as roti, paratha, thosai, vadai, and appam.

However, the best time to come is somewhere close to 11 am when dishes begin to emerge from the kitchen for the banana leaf rice lunch sets.

Puri and appams

We arrived here for that sweet spot where we can sample a few of the breakfast items before digging into some serious banana leaf rice.

For “starters”, we shared Sweet Appam (RM5.50) and Egg Appam (RM6.50). Both were adequate if you’re looking for a light breakfast – the former is on the sweeter side with its generous portion of brown sugar, while the latter features an egg that’s still gooey.

We do prefer the Pani Puri (RM12.50) – a popular street food in India – of a round hollow crispy bread filled with potatoes, masala spices, mint, and pomegranate.

This comes with some mint sauce on the side. The boss lady was kind enough to belanja us Dahi Puri – which Ming actually favours due to the addition of yoghurt which really complemented the other ingredients in the shell.

The puri were also served on cute little carts with working wheels!

Alora Spices’ Banana Leaf Rice set

It’s lunch hour and the banana leaves are out!

Alora Spices offers a number of lunch sets, but we opted for the basic Banana Leaf Rice set (RM10.50) with a few dishes to share.

The Banana Leaf Rice set is value for money – as it comes with many types of vegetables, rasam, and pappadom.

The veggies served on that day include braised choy sum, beetroot, spinach dhal, chickpeas, pumpkin, and pickled lime.

Both of us and mum enjoyed the spinach dhal, chickpeas and pumpkin as we kept asking for refills (yes, refills are free).

Alora Spices only offered dhal, fish and chicken curries on that day. However, we did wish for the curries to be stronger.

Mutton Varuval and Manchurian Chicken

The Mutton Varuval (RM16.50) is as good as it gets – tender and sufficiently marinated with lots of spices.

The surprise here is the Manchurian Chicken (RM13). Yes, it’s not an Indian dish per se – but we enjoyed the tender cuts with a nice sticky sweetness and spiciness that cuts at the end.