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Sri Lankans will often tell you that food tastes better when eaten with the fingers. Eating Sunday lunch at Prince of Yazh, I truly understand why. Using the fingertips of my right hand, I mix rice with a little dahl, turning it into a not-so-dainty mouthful to pop between my lips. The flavours are alive, as though primed by the warmth and curves of my fingers, and the morsel is energising and comforting all at once.

The delicate lentil stew is part of a thali, an array of dishes arranged on a glossy banana leaf, and available as an all-you-can-eat Sunday special. From time to time, chef and owner Jay Mahendran appears with refills spooned from serving pots: a little more dark, delicious goat curry, a spoonful more of the golden spiced potatoes, and sure, I’ll have more slivered carrots and beans in a turmeric-tinged gravy.

Everything tastes bright, focused and clean (unlike my fingers, though there are easily accessible ablutions at the back of this midnight-blue, two-roomed eatery in wonderfully diverse Dandenong).

All the thali dishes are available on the a la carte menu, which is a lovingly curated selection of the food Mahendran grew up with. As well as cooking for her husband and five children, Mahendran’s mum, Maharani, was a chef at legendary (and lamented) Palms Food Court in Mount Waverley.

Mahendran worked at the multi-cuisine suburban cheapie as a teen; he pursued a career in finance but always kept a fire burning for hospitality. “I had a warm feeling inside me: how rewarding it is to serve people and make them happy,” he tells me.

With his mum and wife Nayani, the family opened Prince of Yazh in 2023. After a year of tutelage, Maharani finally handed over her precious recipes to her son. Most dishes use the family’s bespoke curry powder, procured from the Sri Lankan city of Jaffna, where Mahendran’s father, Indran, used to run a spice mill.

Daughter Anavira may only be in prep, but she’s a chatty presence in the dining room; she also designed the kids’ menu. This is truly a family business: you taste the passion as much as the spices.

Jaffna is in Sri Lanka’s largely Tamil north. Yazh (pronounced “yarl”) is a peacock-shaped harp played in the region; it’s also the short version of the Tamil name for Jaffna. The pride in northern Sri Lanka’s heritage is a key motivation, especially since most of Melbourne’s Sri Lankan restaurants represent the more Sinhalese south of the country.

Seafood is the main protein around Jaffna; Jay Mahendran came to Australia when he was eight, but he remembers well the ubiquity of shellfish in his early childhood. On the first Saturday of every month, he painstakingly prepares odiyal kool, a unique seafood soup thickened with flour made from palmyra roots. I believe this is the only place making it in Melbourne.

Breads and hoppers are crafted at a dynamic cooking station in the front window. Parottas are flaky and extra-puffy, the beneficiaries of a savage squishing with two hands once they come off the griddle.

Hoppers – a bowl-shaped pancake made with fermented lentil batter – are fragrant and crisp, perfect for swiping through chutney and mopping up curry.

Flatbread is made fresh for the kottu roti, a famous dish of chopped roti stir-fried with your choice of protein. It’s a complete meal, sturdy, chilli-hot, filling and fun, especially when eaten with the fingers.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine