Chutney Villa offers Southern India pleasures

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Chutney Villa, At Vancouver's Epicentre Of Cool, Puts A Tangy Twist On The Vibrant Cuisine Of Southern India

      A recent multicourse media lunch held at Diva at the Met was an imaginative spin on Iron Chef, with rice the common ingredient. This wasn't your ordinary long-grain, mind you; this was Kumai Harvest rice, each pearly grain gleaming and said to be among the best in the world. The eight chefs weren't exactly run-of-the-mill either: each had been asked to work with the product in their usual style. Jean-Yves Benoit of L'Emotion rejigged the classic bouillabaisse as a chilled little tower of crab, scallops, mussels, and sea urchin with saffron mayonnaise. Stéphane Meyer from Piccolo Mondo tried using the rice in risotto but found it worked better in a bone marrow--enriched galette. Edward Tuson from Sooke Harbour House sat a rice "parcel" in a broth that tasted like a stroll along the seashore. Vikram Vij sent out a Bollywood-bright duo of neon-orange mango and vivid-green cilantro chutneys flanking a paneer-and-rice cake. The chefs served rice every which way--stuffed, steamed, creped, toasted--except, discounting the buckets of sake, fermented.

      For that, you go to Chutney Villa, a five-month-old South Indian restaurant near the Main-Broadway epicentre of cool. Here, the cheerful Chindi Varardarajulu--the chef, whose origins are in Andhra Pradesh--soaks rice and urad (lentils), grinds it up, lets nature do its stuff (it's that sourdough principle), and makes the "dough" into small steamed dumplings called idli. (You may have seen what look like poached-egg holders in the Punjab Market; these are for idli.) The small, neat domes are served in fours, sprinkled with chopped cilantro, with a bowl of sambal in the middle. The sambal is like a thin soup, afloat with black mustard seeds, tolerably fiery, and filled with chunks of carrot or potato. The quartet of fresh chutneys offered might include coconut in plain and spicy variations and a couple more based on ginger and pineapple. (On another occasion, I've tasted a melon pickle that is sweet and engaging but with a driving chili backbeat. Varardarajulu says she'll be using rhubarb as soon as it comes into season.) Alone, the pale little idli taste slightly, pleasantly, sour; with sambal and a dollop of chutney, however, every bite is a different experience. Varardarajulu says that you can't use just any rice; what she cooks with is small-grained tonni.

      Nor is this your usual Indian-restaurant décor. Not a surprise: with neighbours like Dadabase, how could it be? Walls are parrot-green or paprika-red, and filled with enough works by local artists to give the room a gallery feel; music is modern hits, not classical sitar; and sheer saffron-coloured drapes dilute the view of the Broadway traffic. The spice-encrusted candle holders on the tables are more than just for tea lights: they symbolize one of the differences between southern and northern Indian cuisine. In the south, cooks not only use a wider variety of spices in each dish but go for tangier flavours--tamarind is a common ingredient--and lighter fare, unlike the ghee-rich dishes of the north.

      Probably the best-known South Indian dish are dosas: thin crepes made of finely ground rice and lentils cooked on a grill. Most places I've had them, they're served rolled like medieval manuscripts. Here, they fold them into triangles, crisp, dappled, and with a smoky whiff from the grill. Plain, with onions, or a masala dosa bulging with peas, potatoes, and carrots, sambal and chutney on the side: very tasty, indeed. Climb out of your eggs-Bennie rut one weekend and eat Indian-style instead. Idli and dosa are both on the almost completely vegetarian tiffin menu defined as "lighter meals". Emptier bellies can order a biryani or a full meal built around prawns, chicken, tofu, egg, or lamb that comes with rice, sambal, chutney, pappadams, and salad. The fish sambal uses meaty kingfish, still on the bone, from the Indian ocean mixed in with Asian eggplant and onion. Order the large-size all-in taali ($2 more) and Varardarajulu also cooks you vegetables, rasam (a tangy broth said to be good for digestion), an appetizer fritter called vadai made of white lentils or yellow split peas, and dessert. Extra sambal? More chutney? Service has a hominess to it. For drinks, you've got Indian beers, a few wines, or fresh lime juice.

      Good value. Dinner for two could be anywhere from $20 for some tiffin tastes to $60 with a bottle.

      CHUTNEY VILLA 147 East Broadway, 604-872-2228. Open Sunday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Closed Tuesday.

      Comments