7:00 AM

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch -- Orson Wells.

In this “My Scooter Sunday”, I rode from Petaling Jaya via the Federal Highway to my destination - The Row on Jalan Doraisamy in Chow Kit. I am doing a series on Chow Kit because there is plenty to do, see, and eat in this area.

Today, I went ethnic with my music. I started my riding playlist with a Sinhala and Tamil rendition of a Sri Lankan baila (to dance) called “Surangani”. The lyrics go like this: Surangani, Surangani, Suranganika malu genavah, Malu, malu, malu, Suranganika malu, Suranganika malu genavah. It translates into Suragani (name), Surangani, Surangani, I bring you fish, fish, fish; and the fish I bring you is freshly caught. This baila is a love song (The Palindromic). Click below for my forward journey with “Surangani”.

“All fishing communities have a culture that spells both the hardship and the danger of going out to sea into an unknown day, as well as the exhilaration and joy of returning to safety. The men return from a day out at sea in the dim light of evening or dawn, their frail skiffs rising and falling to the eye in the distance, and then, like sea birds coming to land, with the last swell of wave the boat touches sand. The men jump out, hailing, shouting, almost singing their joy” (Arumugam 184).

Her second home is Australia but her first home is Malaysia. Her name is Nesa Arumugam, and she has authored 11 books, one of which is “The Jaffna Tamil Cookbook". Brilliantly written, and edited, this book compiles recipes for breakfast dishes, porridges, and rice dishes, vegetable dishes, chambals, chutneys, pachadis, and podis, chicken, meat, and seafood dishes, achars, and pickels, palakaarams, and teatime treats. Most people choose this book for its recipes, but I have chosen it for its short stories. Rather than recreating the wheel, I have chosen to take excerpts from her cookbook.

“As we sat on the beach in the setting sun, the fishermen would be hauling in their catch. There is a universal rhythm of fishermen's songs as they pull in their boats on snake-thick ropes: “Ye-leh-Leh … yeh-leh-Leh … yeh-leh-Leh” with every deep breath as they tugged the rope up the beach. The main singer would call out to the deity of their choice, Ambal or Muruga or Kandha, in stanzas in between the rhythm. It was an almost mesmerising linear dance, and you involuntarily, swayed back and forth to the rhythm” (Arumugam 184).

Talking about the fishermen’s hauls made me hungry, and I made a bee line for Yarl at The Row at 22 & 24, Jalan Doraisamy in Chow Kit. Yarl, derived from Yarlpanam, the Tamil name for Jaffna, is an authentic northern Sri Lankan restaurant with a black and white theme. The restaurant is located in a pre-war two shoplot building. The interior style is clean cut with a minimalist approach; it is decorated with a people collage, and a picture of a fisherman’s knot. Yarl has three branches: The Row, Brickfields, and Taman Tun. Brickfields is the oldest branch, which started as a food stall ten years ago.

With the fishermen’s songs on my mind, I googled Sri Lanka fishermen’s music, and I came up with one chant. It is probably in Sinhala but it gives a flavour of the chant, beach and sea. Click below to listen.

“The fishermen’s families would come to the beach, baskets on hip or head, while others would have made a make-shift stove with stones on the beach. By now the pots were there and the spices, knives and herbs. The song will be echoed softly by the women as they wandered towards the boats, now that the nets were hauled in, some full, some with only handfuls of small fish and crabs” (Arumugam 184).

At Yarl, they use a blend of Sri Lankan cinnamon, turmeric, and fenugreek in the dishes. And they focus on the six tastes of food, i.e., sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent (spicy) and astringent (dry). “It is believed that every meal should have an equal balance of all these flavours to properly satisfy each major taste bud on our palate”. https://www.yarl.my/welcome-to-yarl-the-row

“The women would select from the haul. And there, right there on the beach, they would make soup or stew with the best fish and prawns. The rice in pots would emerge from their baskets, wrapped in layers of old sarees to insulate their warmth. The aroma of chilli, tamarind, of turmeric powder and rising heat, would fill their spaces in vastness of beach and sea. And the women, shouting their love, called their men, to the feast for people who conquer fear each day.” (Arumugam 184)

I made two visits to Yarl at The Row. And on my first visit, for lunch, I discovered that it does not serve soup or stew but it serves plenty of seafood. Among the seafood is crab curry, fish curry/poriyal (fry), prawn curry/poriyal, squid curry, and sura (shark) varai (stir fry). And you can eat this with either rice, parboiled rice, or quinoa. I selected the crab, and fish curry, and the prawn sambal with parboiled rice. The seafood was succulent, with a good balance of spices, leaning towards spicy. The crab, fish, and prawn dishes were very good. And I washed it all down with a nice hot cup of Ceylon tea with french vanilla.

“The rice was put on tin plates or kottangkachchis (coconut shells) and the rich, aromatic sea soup was poured on the rice. And was there ever a king in story who was happier than those fishermen eating their rice swimming in – Puliyanam. How fortunate were we to be invited to drink a coconut shell bowl of this kingly seafood soup!” (Arumugam 184)

Before my second visit, to Yarl, I took a closer look at its mission statement: “To make people happy is what cooking is all about. At Yarl, we make every single varuval, thuvaiyal, poriyal, rasam, vathakal, sothi, sambal, aviyal, kool, curry, and theeyal using this philosophy”.

My second visit to Yarl at The Row was for breakfast. I ordered, Yarl’s signature breakfast dish, the Yarl thosai, which was made of blended rice, and gram lentils. Unlike the usual thosais that are thin, this thosai was thick; but it was yummy. It was served with one chutney, one sambal, and one gravy. I also ordered sweet appam, and again, Ceylon tea with french vanilla. And what made the ride really worthwhile, was the sweet appam. It made me happy! I have tasted appam in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and England, and Yarl’s sweet appam topped with brown sugar is by far the BEST!

I finished “My Scooter Sunday” by taking a new route through the city, and to the Federal Highway. I have a new GOPRO Hero 10, and I am anxious to see the footage of the shoot from JuJu (my Vespa Primavera). The distance, and duration of my ride are the same as last week, i.e., 30 km and one hour. And the song for my return ride is “I Feel Good” (1964) by James Brown. This is my nonagenarian mother's choice. What I enjoyed most was riding to James Brown, reading short stories, and eating sweet appam at Yarl.

Scootin’ off for now. Click below for my return journey with James Brown belting out "I Feel Good .. Sugar& Spice".

Arumugam, Nesa. (2018). “The Jaffna Tamil Cookbook”, Melbourne/ Australia, Rayaru Publications.