One of the most successful Tamil family restaurants in George Town, Sri Ananda Bahwan, actually started off in Butterworth, on the mainland part of Penang, back in 1990. It was founded by an extremely resourceful single mother, Radhabay Iyasamy Naidoo, who singlehandedly supported her brood of 8 children by first working for a South Indian restaurant located on the ground floor of a two-storey shophouse, whilst she and her children lived upstairs. That was back in 1980 when she first moved to Butterworth from Taiping, Perak. Radhabay accumulated enough savings (and confidence) within the next decade to buy out the restaurant, and run it with the help of her children.
The family-run restaurant’s success, through sheer hard work, was nothing short of amazing - at its peak, the Sri Ananda Bahwan group of companies employs over 500 employees in 17 restaurant branches spread across 3 Malaysian states, two textile boutiques, a grocery store, a catering company and a hotel in Chennai, India.
The youngest of her children, Harikrishnan Veerasamy, now 31, is presently in-charge of the restaurant chain’s operations, whilst his older brother, Selvaraj Veerasamy, takes charge of the kitchens.
We were at its largest outlet on Penang Island - at MacAlister Road last night for a quick supper after a late meeting. The place is bustling, as usual.
Typical of South Indian restaurants in Penang/Malaysia, the restaurant’s menu offerings ran the gamut from Tamil to North Indian (tandooris, naans), Desi-Chinese (Gobi Manchurian, Hakka noodles, etc.), and even Malaysian (nasi lemak, nasi goreng). There were 10 of us in our dinner party, as we just came from a late meeting of the Penang Players theatre group, and our food orders were pretty diverse:
Vegetable pakoras with mint chutney and tamarind chutney dips. Served crisp and hot, these starters were pretty addictive.
Tandoori chicken with biryani rice. Very good quality tandoori - kudos to the current set of chefs.
Tandoori chicken with naan bread. - luscious pairing. Only missing a good raita on the side to make it perfect.
Chicken varuval with garlic naan. - spicy, with a pronounced toasted coconut flavour in the tasty sauce.
Rava thosai.
Masala thosai.
Prawn biryani.
Vegetarian biryani.
Vegetarian banana leaf rice set.
Every dining experience at Sri Ananda Bahwan has that “organised chaos” feel - you keep your fingers crossed that your orders will be taken correctly, and delivered all in one piece to your table. You do feel that you are back in South India, warts and all.
Details
Sri Ananda Bahwan (MacAlister Road branch)
225, Macalister Road, 10450 George Town, Penang, Malaysia
Tel: +604-210 0840
Opening hours: 7:00am to 11:00pm daily
And the varuval!
