ALIYAA: MICHELIN Awarded Sri Lankan Restaurant in Bukit Damansara, KL

Aliyaa is one of the 15 restaurants in KL that was recently awarded with a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide 2023 Kuala Lumpur and Penang.
We made a reservation at ALIYAA for Christmas Eve and tried their Christmas menu, which is available throughout December and replaces their normal Aliyaa Experience Menu, which is not available while the Christmas Menu is running.
The items in both menus mirror each other. Both are well balanced and represented with fish, prawn, chicken, mutton, eggplant, cashew, and sambal dishes with rice. The Christmas menu also features roasted spring chicken and an extra dessert of Christmas fruit cake for a festive spin.
We were served Crab Meat Samosa as the starter. This was deep fried to perfection and came with a few deep fried curry leaves. I was seriously impressed by the generous amounts of crab meat inside this beauty. The heat level can be on the higher side but that's what's exciting about Aliyaa.
The soup course is Chicken Mulligatawny, which is a curry based soup made with diced vegetables and chicken. There's also chickpeas, potatoes and carrots inside and it's also quite spicy, but delicious. I later heard from the chef that a lot of their food is spicy, as they use authentic Sri Lankan recipes.
The Christmas menu came on a nice weaved rattan serving basket and has all the main dishes flanking curry leaf basmati rice. This looks like one of those floating breakfasts served in your resort's private pool in Bali or Phuket. There's:
Roasted Spring Chicken
Devilled Fish
Mutton Curry
Prawn Peratal
Eggplant Salad
Cashew and Pea Curry
Nettili Sambol
We particularly enjoyed the devilled fish, which had a beautiful balance of flavors. I thought it was chicken at first, as the fish has been either fried or baked till it was very firm. The prawn peratal also went down very well. The entire prawn has been deep fried so you can eat the head of the shrimp together with the complex dry curry spices. My wife also enjoyed the eggplant salad, which is surprising as she doesn't normally like eggplant or brinjal due to the sightly mushy texture. Aliyaa's eggplant salad comes with thinly sliced eggplant that has been deep fried till all the moisture is extracted. It's crispy and goes well with the rice.
Same thing with the nettili sambol. This dry, granular sambal is made from fish floss. I thought it was dried shrimp at first coz the umami and seafood flavor was so pronounced it tastes like sundried shrimp. I checked with Chef Sivarajah and he mentioned it was fish, not prawn. This sambal is very more-rish with rice!
Cashew and pea curry was also very unique and the size of the cashews are XL, which is great news for cashew lovers like me. Another of my favorites is the mutton curry, which we finished in no time.
For desserts, we were served with Sweet Appam, which was flavored with shredded coconut cooked with palm sugar or coconut sugar. We've eaten 3 different types of appam at Aliyaa now and all were very good. I love the fluffy center and the crispy edges. I still prefer the egg appam but this is a great finisher for their Christmas menu.
We were also served with 2 pieces of Christmas fruit cake for the finishing act. This was quite sweet but very good when eaten in moderation. Syrus enjoyed a bite too but my wife doesn't like fruitcakes. I generally don't either but I'm more than okay with eating it once in a long while.
The bill came up to RM360.75 for dinner. The Christmas or Experience menu is RM128++ per pax with a minimum of 2 pax and we also ordered drinks and appam. For the food and ambience, it's good value.
Ask for the window seats on first floor for the best seats in the house. They truly deserve their MICHELIN Bib Gourmand.
Thanks for watching, and see you all next video!
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Woow happy to see you tried Sri Lankan food❤❤❤ try more...all the way from🇱🇰🇱🇰

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