Review: At Nellai Banana Leaf, Chettinad cuisine gloriously expands WNY's Indian menu
South Indian cooking is worlds different from the 95 percent of WNY Indian places serving North Indian standards

If you’ve seen one Indian restaurant in Western New York, you’ve seen them all.
That’s the way it feels after 15 years of curry-hunting on the Niagara Frontier. Most customers at Indian restaurants can order without looking at the menu. Butter chicken, palak paneer, tandoori chicken, garlic naan, rogan josh, you know the drill. Northern Indian dishes are 95 percent of local Indian offerings.
That’s why I say “Nellai Banana Leaf” when asked for my favorite Indian restaurant. Its menu zigs where others zag, to South India, specifically Chettinad.
India has more than 40 distinct regional cuisines. Among them, Chettinad has a reputation as a real head-turner, due partly to ingredients brought back by wide-ranging Chettinad traders. “One is lucky to eat like a Chettiar” is a South Indian saying for a reason.
In American terms, discovering Chettinad after a lifetime of Northern Indian was like opening a 64-pack of Crayolas after a lifetime limited to the eight basic shades.
South Indian cuisine has its own iconic dishes.
Dosas ($11.99-$17.99) are savory crepes served with chutneys, a rip-and-dip affair. They arrive with a chutney trio: fresh ground coconut with black mustard seeds, roasted tomato sauce, and sambar, spicy lentil soup.
Served rolled into a tube or folded into triangles, dosas are so thin and crispy you can hear the crunch across the table. Cooked in clarified butter, most are made of rice and lentil batter, making them gluten-free. The exceptions, rava dosas, are made of semolina.
Dosas can also carry a payload of spiced potato, curry, or other fillings, to elevate them from an appetizer to a meal.
Idly ($11.99-$14.99) are steamed rice batter cakes shaped like flying saucers. They come with chutneys, or curries for the entree set. Appam ($8.99-$12.99) are made of coconut-rice-lentil batter, edges curling while they steam so they come out looking like a mixing bowl. Plain, painted with egg, or carrying curries

Mehdu vadai ($7.99) might be my favorite South Indian snack of all. Fluffy fried doughnuts of rice-lentil batter, dunked in chutney, are one utterly satisfying snack that happens to be vegan. Golfball-sized spheres of fluffy rice-lentil batter, kuzhi paniyaram ($11.99), are served with mustard-chile dip, taking the South Indian savory doughnut game further.
Vegans can roam widely on Nellai’s menu. Dosas and idly can be ordered vegan. Chettinad curries don’t always use cream or yogurt, as most Northern Indian versions do.
Ennai kathirikkai ($12.99) is plum eggplant split, stuffed with spices, and simmered to tenderness in tamarind-garlic gravy.
Marina beach sundal ($7.99) is one of the friendliest garbanzo dishes I’ve ever seen. Chickpeas are given a ride in a smoky wok, then tossed with shredded fresh coconut, diced fresh mango, and cilantro for a legume showcase that demolishes beans’ leaden reputation.
South Indian cooking isn’t particularly spicy, but heat-seekers ought to consider some Chettinad specialties that hurt so good. Kozhi malli milagu rasam soup ($6.99) starts sour with tamarind, then smolders with black pepper. Aatukaal soup ($6.99) is clear goat broth with goat meat and curry leaves, its resonant richness countered by an incendiary black pepper character that adds real urgency to each spoonful.
For a milder adventure, try the podi idly ($11.99), those steamed flying-saucer-shaped rice batter cakes covered with “gunpowder,” a mixture of ground chiles, lentils, green mango and other spices.
Another feature of Chettinad cuisine is using bread as an ingredient in other dishes. Chilli parotta ($12) is a triumph of the crouton arts. Parotta bread is sliced, deep-fried to a crisp, then stir-fried in a rousing spicy-sour sauce with curry leaves and bell peppers, is another vegan show-stopper.
Then there’s kothu parotta ($12.99-$16.99), minced bread stir-fried with spices, onion, tomato, and more. It comes out like Thanksgiving stuffing South Indian style, comfort food with a lot more than sage influencing the outcome.
Fish is available in several contexts, like the spice-rubbed pomfret ($17.99) that’s griddled to crisp up the skin, and served whole on a sizzle platter. Malabar fish or shrimp curry ($16.99) features a beguiling tamarind-inflected sauce with subtle depth of character.
There are some standbys on the menu, too. Tandoori chicken ($12.99 half, $21.99 full) is here, offering well-marinated birds with the favor going all the way to the bone. For a new chicken sensation, consider zaffroni malai chicken tikka ($15.99), all white meat, marinated in spiced cashew paste and roasted in the tandoor.
In 2019, when Antony Kulandairaj and Kalimuthu Chithambaram opened Nellai Banana Leaf, they weren’t sure serving unusual Indian food was a recipe for success in Clarence. As the fame of Chettinad cuisine grows locally, business has been steady enough that the partners are now considering opening a second location in Niagara Falls.
If you’re bored with the same eight Crayons offered by our Indian menus, think outside the box. Book a voyage to Nella Banana Leaf for a dosa different Indian cuisine.
4303 Transit Road, Clarence, nellaibananaleaf.com, 716-276-3786
Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 5 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Sunday. Closed Monday.
Prices: appetizers $7.99-$13.99, entrees $8.99-$21.99
Parking: lot
Wheelchair accessible: yes
Gluten-free: dosas, medhu vadai, most vegan curries, tandoori chicken
Vegan: idly, dosas, vegetable biryani, Gobi 65, ennai kathirikai
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