AN INTERVIEW WITH COAST, KL
A TALK WITH CHEF SAL SABEEL
Kerala was a bi-yearly destination for our family holidays, taking the hair-raising bus from Ooty to Coimbatore, followed by the overnight train to Trivandrum and a perfectly joyous taxi ride through the hum of morning, with the Keralan sun peeking through the palmtrees as the ladies sat along the roadside cutting stones. The old windows would be wound down just enough to rest your elbow out, maintaining enough leverage for a breeze but not enough to break an arm on a passing rickshaws rearviewmirror. The dew lifting off the branches as men walked into the garden wearing bright lunghi's to clear their throats and the women came back from the well with buckets of water balanced on their heads.
The locals call it "Gods own country", and spending a few days in Kerala one starts to understand why. The state sits proudly atop the education summit in India, the literacy rate is almost 100, the streets are cleaner and more orderly than most other parts of the sub-continent, and the food, oh the food!
From feasting with families at Onam, to fresh caught Kingfish steaks being cooked in a tandoor oven on the beach, to plump rice and coconut curries, ripe fruit and fresh lime sodas. Kerala truly is a wonderland.
Kuala Lumpur has been blessed with a large polulation of Tamils, who, over time have managed to leave an indelible print on the cultural and culinary landscape. Ask any Malaysian and Banana Leaf will be one of their top comfort foods. Roti Canai (a version of Paratha) is craved weekly by most commuters in the big cities of Malaysia. Hindu temples line the streets and processions in Brickfields turn into a fiesta of colours and chaos. Amidst all of this cultural bleed, there has been a couple of restaurants trying to plant the flag of Keralan food in the city: Kayra and Mollagaa.
Mollagaa is more a casual "meals" spot with cheap and cheerful cuisine. Kayra took the plunge in elevating the decor and dishes into something a little more mid-priced. The result has been two branches that are perpetually full of people eating their way through delicious and changing menus. Kayra has been a favourite of ours for many years, drawn back by the promise of the consistency of quality, something that KL really suffers from.
2024 saw the start of a new venture from Kayra's owner and head chef: Meriam & Sabeel. Located closer to the main tourist throngs of KL, Bukit Bintang,
COAST is a new concept opening the door to a taste of the bountiful seafood along the long shoreline of Kerala. Combining local seafood, spices and some imported elements, COAST is here to change the way in which Malaysians view Keralan food.
THE MOUTH conducted an interview with head chef Sal Sabeel in July 2024, and the following is a transcript of the exchange.
First of all for our readers who are not aware of COAST, can you please introduce the restaurant and yourself and explain a bit about your overall vision or philosophy.
My name is Sal Sabeel and I am Head Chef of Kayra and Coast by Kayra. Coast by Kayra opened in January this year and is situated at The Starhill, Bukit Bintang. We also run a cloud kitchen called Kayra Delivers whereby we are more focused on one plate meals. The overall vision was to bring Kerala cuisine to Malaysians and largely to introduce the cuisine with a fun modern twist whilst retaining traditional recipes.
Since Coast is an off-shoot of Kayra, what was the reason for creating a new theme and not just opening another branch of Kayra downtown. Do you feel this restaurant has the opportunity to reach a new audience or showcase something different?
We first thought of opening another branch of Kayra but then we decided to go with a signature brand situated in the heart of the city so we could expand our cuisine not just to Malaysians but also to visitors and allow them to experience Kerala cuisine from a different perspective, which is focused on Kerala’s coastal heritage.
When we decided on the concept we knew that seafood is the one singular thing in Kerala that always stands out so we decided to dive deeper into the various regions of the Keralan coast and to give these traditional recipes a modern approach. Last year Meriam (Alfonso, founder of Kayra) and I travelled to India for inspiration and we definitely got some. I think inspirations can come from anywhere, whether it is a market, my father’s humble stall, or riverside shops, every place in the different regions of Kerala have
different versions of making one dish and the aim was to bring a slice of that to Coast by Kayra.
Southern Indian food is plentiful in Kuala Lumpur due, in part, to the large population of Tamil people living in the multicultural community of Malaysia. Most people will be familiar with the hundreds of Banana Leaf spots scattered around KL, but perhaps less knowledgeable about the fantastic seafood culture that exists in the southern states of India. Since Kerala borders Tamil Nadu, and shares a long coastline, what inspiration do you take from South Indian food and how do you go about educating people about this style of food?
Kerala in the southwest of India has always been unique because of its coastal shores, and the types of fresh seafood available. I grew up consuming banana leaf meals, mainly twice a year during the Vishu & Onam vegetarian feasts and I have fond memories of those. One thing I think that sets Malaysia and Kerala apart is that there are certainly more banana leaf restaurants than in Kerala, and it is fun for me to introduce a different cuisine to Malaysians that are more familiar with the former. So far our guests have been generous with their praise and it brings me joy to know that they have embraced our interpretation of Keralan food with such ease.
What are the main differences between Tamil and Keralan food?
I think the main difference lies in the spices, and the usage of coconut in all its forms. Coconut oil is the main oil that is used in this cuisine and more importantly, everything is always medium spiced. Here we use whole red Kashmiri chillies, coriander, turmeric which will then be sent to the mill to be ground and we make our in-house garam masala on a weekly basis so nothing is stored for a long period of time to ensure its freshness. During my childhood I watched my mother and father do the same for the spices that were used for the stall and for the home. We believe it always makes a big difference.
Since COAST is seafood-forward, how and where do you source your fish/prawns? Is it important to create relationships with local fishermen or do you use suppliers to maintain fresh seafood consistently.
Our seafood supplier has been with us for many years now and they in turn, source their seafood from local fishermen from the different parts of Malaysia like Selangor, Pahang, Perak, Kedah, Sabah and more. We purchase on a daily basis and everything comes to us freshly caught, which we then do quality checks on, clean and weigh before it makes its way to the kitchen in the restaurant.
Malaysia and India share very similar climates and soil, but what are the ingredients or herbs / plants/ vegetables that are difficult to source there, and how do you overcome this or substitute them with local ingredients? Is seasonality an issue or welcome challenge when it comes to maintaining certain products, and does this lead to frequent menu changes?
Our main ingredient that goes into our classic fish curry and meen pollichathu is Kokum, which is the Kerala version of tamarind. Apart from being a souring agent, it also has a
smoky flavor and that is something that we cannot source locally and there is no substitution for it. That is the one ingredient which we directly get from Kerala to keep the integrity and retain the flavors of our dishes. Besides that, we have have always focused on sourcing ingredients locally, and hav even incorporated some native ingredients into our dishes, like the pucuk paku (fern) that is on our menu as a vegetarian dish, and also the jantung pisang (banana blossoms) commonly used in both Kerala and Malaysia into a cutlet.
I have eaten at KAYRA many times in the past, and always enjoy the food there. One of the main things that strikes me is the consistency. Often in Asia restaurants can vary wildly from day to day, and I think customers really value knowing that they will get the same taste they did last time around. How do you and your team manage to keep the consistency level so high and what are the main challenges?
We always aim for consistency on daily basis, as we know that is key to any successful restaurant. There have been many challenges along the way such as the variant of spices, chillies found here that are sometimes not up to our expectations which requires a lot of fine-tuning of the recipes, tasting, quality checks on a daily basis until the whole team is aligned on the same page. The kitchen team understands this and that is why we are able to deliver consistency on daily basis.
Coastal Indian food has started to gain some recognition in the last decade, with restaurants such as JHOL in Bangkok (who are also opening in KL), and Kayra showing people that Indian food is not just Chicken Tikka Masala . What do you think are some traditional recipes that are criminally underrated from the South Indian table, and that you want to showcase to your guests. Also what are some misconceptions the average person has about Indian food.
Misconceptions that we often get is that Indian food is heavy on the belly and heavily spiced. People are surprised after dining in Kayra and Coast by Kayra that we have broken this myth perpetuating our food – that it can be subtle yet flavorful and not heavily laden with spiciness and creaminess. We believe regional Indian food has its place in the local food scene and from the inception of Kayra, we have wanted to bring the awareness and the taste of Kerala to Malaysians, so they get a holistic picture of South Indian cuisine. The diaspora is very large and wide & all of us play different roles in showcasing our regional food whether locally or internationally.
Can you tell us about the signature dishes at COAST by Kayra? And a little on the process of creating new dishes for the menu?
Once we knew that we were going to be focused on the shores of Kerala for the concept, we started looking for recipes throughout the coastal region from different households, especially from the mothers and grandmothers who reigned in the kitchens, and we took inspiration from the north all the way to the south. For example, the fish curry on our menu is based on Meriam’s family recipe wheareas the lamb biryani is a version of what my father always makes at home to be served in his food stall. We knew our creativity could be showcased more through our small plates so that part of the menu took months of R&Ds where we tested different types of seafood to match the different small plates we had envisioned to add some fun elements through different textures, and that evolved into the final version of what our menu is today.
We usually like to ask our Head Chefs if they have a few secret places in their city to shout out or promote. Restaurants, shacks, stalls, that you feel are doing some amazing food but not getting the credit they deserve. In other words, if you had friends coming to Kuala Lumpur, what would be some places you tell them they absolutely cannot miss. This can be anything from any cuisine, your favourite banana leaf, roti canai, nasi lemak, etc.
Easy answer, my go-to-place is Bala’s Banana leaf in Lucky Garden Bangsar which serves a really hearty meal.
Interview between The Mouth and Sal Sabeel published with permission, July 2024.
All food photographs were taken by Kayra/Coast and published with permission. Menu items may vary.
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