Holiday in Nagoya (3) - South Indian restaurant ERICK SOUTH

From Futaba Museum, I walked to Takaoka Station and took a subway (Sakura-dori Line of Nagoya Municipal Subway) to Nagoya Station. I had been looking forward to having a lunch in Nagoya because there is a south Indian restaurant near the station. In Japan, there are many Indian restaurants, so it isn’t difficult to find one in provincial cities like Hamamatsu. But most of them serve north Indian dishes, featuring big naan bread. You can find south Indian restaurants only in big cities including Nagoya.

The restaurant ERICK SOUTH was easy to find. It was in the basement of KITTE NAGOYA, a shopping mall that was 5-minute walk from the station. When I got there, I saw about ten people waiting in front of the restaurant to be seated though it was around 13:30. It seemed to be very popular. After a while, I was guided to a long table and could have a seat. Their menu was very convenient for vegetarians because ERICK SOUTH uses the Indian vegetarian mark (a green circle in a green square) to distinguish vegetarian dishes from other dishes. I ordered Veg Meals with full of expectation.

The menu items were also written in English. While waiting, I read the menu carefully and found that Veg Meals can be changed to be a vegan version with an extra charge. If I have another chance to come there, I’d like to try the vegan version. But it was still exciting to have a standard Veg meals as I had seldom eaten south Indian dishes. It looked gorgeous! It included turmeric rice, coconut curry, Aloo Baigun, Daal Tarka, sambar, rasam, yogurt, vada, upma, coconut chutney, papad,

and Basmati rice under papad.

Like me, many Japanese people who aren’t familiarized with meals would be surprised to see this variety of dishes and wonder what they are. So, the restaurant had a sheet on every table to provide the names and description of respective dishes and explain how to eat meals.

I started with papad. According to the explanation, it was made from ground beans. I broke it in some pieces and ate as they were. Papad was crispy and reminded me of potato chips. But it wasn’t oily at all and seemed to be much healthier. It was a little salty and seemed to be good for snack.

Then I tasted the coconut curry. Though it is my favorite kind of curry, I had eaten it only in a Sri Lanka restaurant (it is also in Nagoya). As I had expected, it was mild and very good. Though the instruction recommended mixing curry and rice on the tray, I ate curry and rice separately just because I wanted to taste them separately. Basmati rice was served with some chickpea powder on top. On the table there were pickles and chickpea powder in cans so that customers could add them freely to their dishes. According to the menu, Aloo Baigun and Daal Tarka were the vegetarian dishes of the day. Aloo Baigun was thick curry with eggplant and potatoes. Daal Tarka contained four beans boiled to a pulp. Like other bean curry I had eaten before, this Daal Tarka was very tasty. I noticed that we seldom use multiple kinds of beans together in traditional Japanese dishes. Why?

Sambar and rasam are soup. According to the explanation, sambar contains toor dal and vegetables, and rasam is spicy soup with flavors of tamarind and black pepper. As both of them were red, they looked very hot. Actually, they were quite spicy, but I was very glad to eat them. Several years ago, I traveled to North India. Then I had a lunch in a South Indian restaurant in Agra and ate these soups with rice. They had strong but good tastes and somehow reminded me of rice and miso soup that is the basic combination in a traditional home cooked meal in Japan. It was one of my most impressive experiences in India.

Vada is a kind of doughnut made from urad dal. In fact, I couldn’t remember exactly how it tasted because of the stronger flavor of coconut chutney. I liked it very much. This sauce was also on upma made from rough-ground wheat flour mixed with vegetables and spices. It had an elastic interesting texture.

The restaurant provides free refills of sambar, rasam, and the two kinds of rice, but I was quite full when I finished the meals. Sambar and rasam were so spicy that my lips and inside of my mouth were tingling even after eating sour yogurt and drinking water. So, I ordered Navratan Kulfi and chai to mitigate tingling.

The taste of chai varies greatly depending on restaurants. This chai was relatively sweet. Navratan Kulfi was a dessert made from strained yogurt, dried fruits, and chocolate. It was frozen and difficult to cut with the fork but very delicious! (However, I noticed later that Navratan Kulfi on the menu didn’t have a vegetarian mark. Staff members in the restaurant seemed to be very busy so I couldn’t ask them why)

When I left ERICK SOUTH, there was no one who was waiting outside to have a seat. So, I could take a picture of the restaurant finally. I hope we can have this kind of restaurant in Hamamatsu someday.

ERICK SOUTH
Address: B1F, JP Tower Nagoya (KITTE NAGOYA), 1-1-1 Meieki, Nakamura-ku, Nagoya-shi, Aichi
Tel: 052-433-1780
Open hours: 11:00 - 23:00
Closed: According to KITTE NAGOYA