Wild Spice – An inconspicuous Coorg restaurant that surprises your taste buds!

We stepped into this inconspicuous coorg restaurant located in the basement of Field Marshal K M Cariappa Bhavan, itself a nondescript building adjacent to the St. Patrick’s Church compound. The entrance of the restaurant is on the Residency road side and we were greeted with a warm smile by Dev Devaiah, owner of this Kodava cuisine restaurant.

The ambience of the place is no frills attached and plain jane. No fancy interiors and bit withered but all that was made up by good conversation with the man of the restaurant and the food dished out. And for me both are on top of the list to enjoy a good meal.

So I prodded him what made him jump into restaurant business and he bowled me over with his candid reply. Many years ago someone crazy about music wanted to stack up some premier guitar but realized he had no cash. So our man worked hard to come up with an restaurant to realize his dream. And I was talking to that man. Though he said in due course he realized he invested more into the restaurant that he could have very well bought his collectibles. Fortunately, his passion for food and restaurant grew and Wild Spice stood all these years due to it. One candid reply ha! I enjoyed the conversation while having my plate-full!

The restaurant claims to serve ‘authentic coorg cuisine’ and Dev quipped many of the recipe are passed on to him by his mom. It has something to offer for both the veg and non-veg kinds and being a coorg speciality restaurant the pick of the menu being ‘coorg pandi curry’ or pork dishes. And I did see many of them opting for it. They also have thali for those who don’t want to confuse with the menus. The thalis available both in the choice of veg and non-veg are also branched out into rice thali and roti tholi and non-veg thali have quiet a number of variants – chicken, pork, fish, mutton and egg based.

So what you have spread out here is Akki roti, bamboo shoot fry, coorg pork fry, kadambuttu (a coorg style steamed rice balls), mushroom pepper fry.

And we were more than happy when Dev shared us few recipes for our readers but then I would say do drop into this small, quiet looking kodava restaurat if you are in Bangalore and relish the food and yes you can always catch a conversation with the ever-smiling Dev while you enjoy the food and his hospitality.

• Wash rice rava and mix with water.
• Put this into a deep vessel and cook on medium flame.
• Add salt and water, stir with a wooden spoon.
• Continue to stir all the time till the mixture resembles a soft dough, making sure not to burn the dough.
• Turn off the flame and cover for 5 minutes.
• Spoon out a little of the dough on a plate.
• In a small bowl of water add 2 drops of oil.
• Dip finger into this mixture and rub onto both palms.
• Take approximately enough of the hot dough to make an 2 inch ball and roll into a smooth round ball.
• Do the same with the rest of the dough.
• Place the Kadambuttus in a vessel and cover with muslin cloth and
• steam for 20-25 minutes.

Coorg style Pork fry:

Ingredients:

• 1 kg Pork
• 2 table spoon black vinegar
• 5 Onions [medium size] sliced
• 3 table spoon ground Ginger
• 3 table spoon Garlic diced
• 7 Green chillies
• 2 tablespoon Black peper
• 3 tablespoon Coriander seeds
• 2 tablespoon Red chilly powder
• 1 table spoon Cumin seeds
• 1 table spoon garam masala [patta & lavanga]
• 2 table spoon Turmeric powder
• Salt to taste

Method:

1.Cut the pork into medium size pieces.

2.In a pan, dry roast the black pepper, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, for couple of minutes.

3.Grind the roasted ingredients into fine powder and roast powder again till it turns dark

4.Fry the onion, green chillies

5.Add the pork, turmeric powder, chilly powder & salt with ginger and garlic.

6.Cook the pork until done.

7.Add garam masala and the vinegar,stir well.

8.Cook for another couple of minutes.

Bamboo shoot fry:

Ingredients:

• ½ Kg bamboo shoot sliced
• 2 tablespoon rice flour
• 2 onions sliced
• 6-8 garlic flakes cut up
• 2 red chilies
• ¼ teaspoon mustard seed
• 3-4 curry leaves
• 2-3 tablespoon cooking oil
• 2 tablespoon coriander powder
• ½ teaspoon Jeera powder
• 1 tblspn ghee

Preparation: