I love farmers’ market – the quality of the fresh vegetables is just incomparable. Everything is lovely, green and fresh. And cheap. It’s awesome.

And some fresh pears. I got a bag of pears and lemons and apples. I couldn’t help myself.

These guys sell the nicest oranges. They are so sweet and juicy. I can’t rave enough about them.

These are actually navel oranges. I am told sweet navel oranges. Strangely enough, I read on Wikipedia that all navel oranges are grafted and came from the same original tree in California(?) so I wonder how these guys are so much sweeter than all the navel oranges I have tasted.

Also some tangelo, which I assume are a cross between a tangerine and a pomelo. It does have that grapefruity, pomelo-y taste although I’m not too sure what tangerine normally tastes like.

Radish – how cheap are they? By then, we had already bought way too much so I gave them a miss. But next time.

These were the nicest looking parsley and spring onions. We bought a bunch each. I ended up putting the spring onions into soups but sadly the nice parsley was just picked on here and there. Next time I’m going to make tabouleh.

I ended up buying one of these guys but he’s still sitting in my fridge. I intended to roast him with potatoes and whatnot but never got around to it. He’d be all right for a few more days, I might mash him.

I did get a baby artichoke, just to try out. I never boiled artichoke before (usually just sautee it) so this time, I boiled it up.

I was making pasta for dinner so I just tossed the little guy into the cooking pasta. Of course he took a little bit longer to cook than the pasta but he was only a tiny little thing, I boiled him for about 15 minutes and ate him for dessert. I never ate the artichoke leaves before, they were very interesting. They were a bit bitter but in a good, interesting way.

They were also selling some really nice looking silverbeet and broccoli. Didn’t buy any because we had already bought too much but the silverbeet would have been really great sauteed on a crostini.

These were, so they claimed, first pick of the season. I couldn’t resist (and they were so cheap! 3 large punnets for $10). They were one of the freshest, sweetest strawberries I have ever had in Australia. Beautiful.

They also sold apples. Mr. Coddling Moth (aka Joshua) bought 4 kg of apples, which he went through in rapid succession. I think I only got about 3 over 2 weeks.

There was also a bunch of Turkish guys selling gozleme and Turkish breads.

We didn’t buy any but we did buy a loaf of Turkish bread, which was fresh and lovely. Those guys wanted royalty from my photography! The cheek! One of them even posed for a photo (although it didn’t turn out very well)

And like any other urban farmers’ market, there was some sort of entertainment for the kids. This time, we had drumming lessons.

I bought a few loaves of Hope Farm bread, which is proper sourdough made the old fashion way. I think they are a Christian commune of sorts and they only sell their breads at farmers’ markets. They do some times supply their breads to health shop but it just isn’t the same as it’s not fresh. They have the best breads – their spicy fruit bread is to die for. Our total haul was quite impressive!

Boroondara Farmers’ Market, Patterson Reserve, Auburn Road, Hawthorn East
Third Saturday of every month

For information on other farmers’ markets or to search for a farmer’s market near you, try the Australian Farmers’ Market Association website.

Maya has been raving about Solarino for quite some time. Apparently, she and Mik are quite a fan of the place and practically live there. So one day, after having been turned down due to Journal Canteen’s popularity, we ended up there for dinner.

(bread and butter! yes! BUTTER!)

The first thing I noticed about the place was that it was a lot more spacious than I expected. Sure it was a cafe, but it was warmly decorated and had a nice restaurant feel to it. Its menu was projected onto an empty wall (kinda cool, but I can imagine all the restaurant snobs having issues here). The waiter greeted us like an old friend (I think that’s because Mik is there so damn much, he practically was).

(Mik’s rigatoni, he purposely wouldn’t keep it still)

Josh, Mik and I all opted for pasta while Maya went for some fries and Nina ‘I’m just drinking’. In the spirit of 6pm on a Friday night, they ordered a bottle of Moscato to start. Personally, if I don’t get some food in me before the booze, I spend the next day being thoroughly sick. Weak. I know. We were brought some bread and butter. I’m so stoked at the presence of butter at a pasta cafe. We need to revolt against this neglect of butter!

Mik had opted for rigatoni of some description. I’m not too sure what it was but he clearly loved it. In fact he’s so in love with the place, he would have loved it regardless. And yes, he’s not shy about having his picture on teh interweb! I honestly couldn’t remember what was it in – except ricotta.

(spaghettini with prawns, clams, calamari, chilli, white wine and tomato – $24.90)

When presented with too many choices, I went to boring, but favourite route, the spaghettini with seafood. It was delicious. It had nice plump prawns, vongole and calamari – absolutely packed with the seafood. Well seasoned with chilli, wine and olive oil. I loved it. It was one of the better mixed seafood spaghetti out there.

(tagliatelle with ham, chilli, peas, basil, lemon and cream – $22.90)

Josh opted for the tagliatelle. He loved it. It had this distinct tang to it that wasn’t lemony. The pasta was so soft and silky, it’s a been of a switch from my perfectly al dente spaghettini. It was extremely enjoyable although I still liked mine better.

Overall, a really impressive range of lovely pasta dishes. A little more expensive than your average Lygon Street pasta shop but definitely a lot more inventive and well made.

Definitely a place to be for interesting bowls of pasta. We then went to a bar and Friday night commenced.

Solarino, 279 Little Collins Street, Melbourne Vic 3000
03 9663 2636

I am totally going through an asparagus phase at the moment. Every market I go to, they’re selling beautifully fresh, plump asparagus. Who am I to refuse these little beauties?

This soup was adapted from Skye Gyngell’s My Favourite Ingredients, which is really a beautiful cookbook. She writes cookbooks like she writes poetry. It’s great. As Skye said, this recipe is more like a wet, sloppy risotto rather than a soup. It is substantial for dinner.

Hearty Soup for 2:

1. 8 fat asparagus, tough parts peeled back and chopped into 3 cm pieces
2. 1.5 cups of risotto rice
3. 1 spanish onion, finely chopped
4. 3 slices of mild pancetta (about 80g), chopped
5. 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
6. 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
7. 5 fresh sage leaves, chopped
8. 2 slices of dried porcini or 2 dried shittake mushrooms
9. 750 ml of hot water + 1/2 cube of Massel vegetable stock + 1 tsp of Vegeta Gourmet stock*
10. a pinch of salt and pepper
11. parmesan, shaved to serve

Heat up 1 tbsp of olive oil and slowly fry off the onion, pancetta, sage and thyme for about 10 minutes on low heat until the onion turns clear and translucent. Add salt, rice and garlic and fry until the rice is too hot to touch. Add the stock and dried mushrooms and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add asparagus and bring back to boil for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Serve with freshly cracked pepper and shaved parmasan.

* Or use whatever light (vegetable/chicken) stock you have. I rarely do my own stock but I have started a freezer bag of off cut vegetables so once that’s full I might do up a batch of fresh stock.

(beef pho – with sliced rare beef $7.5 S, $8.5m M $9.5L)

I’m not too sure if I have mentioned this a few times already, but I love pho – the famous Vietnamese staple of rice noodles in beef (or chicken) broth. I can eat it three times a day (in fact I have had three bowls of pho in the past two days). Before I get into the pho philosophy, which I will have to write about one of these days, let’s just stick to the review of Pho 888.

(pho condiment – sliced chilli, lemon, beansprouts and Thai basil)

In short, Pho 888 is my second favourite pho joint in Melbourne. It’s the one we visit most often because it’s a 10 minute drive from our house so we end up there a lot. To me, a good pho has to have a good, well balanced soup, silky fresh rice noodles (using dried rice stick, personally, is a deal breaker), tender pieces of meat. Pho 888 ticks all the boxes.

(three-coloured drink – $3)

Most recently, we ended up there last Saturday when it was almost 30′c and I didn’t feel like cooking. Walking into air-conditioned Pho 888 was a bit of a godsend. I quickly ordered the eternal Vietnamese favourite drink – the three-coloured drink. It was basically boiled kidney beans, mung bean paste, green sweet noodle in syrup and covered in coconut milk. It was sweet and refreshing. I’m sure it’s meant to be a dessert, but hey it was a hot day.

(the menu)

The menu was relatively limited. I mean, let’s face it, it’s a pho joint. You go there for pho – either chicken soup or beef soup. There were a few rice dishes (your usual broken rice, fried chicken with tomato rice, grilled lemongrass chicken, Vietnamese spring rolls) and a few drinks – but the pho here is the shining star. I suppose that’s why the place is called Pho 888 and not Broken Rice 888.

I ordered the rare sliced beef, which were pieces of raw beef placed over a bed of noodles with boiling hot broth ladled over them, which cooks them. It was perfect. Sure you could order the special: with tripe, meatballs, etc. And I do order them once in a while, but these come and go. To me, the rare beef always tops the charge (hence it being called ‘number 1′ at most pho restaurant).

(chicken pho – with sliced chicken breast)

Josh went for the chicken equivalent, which was sliced chicken breast (which was well cooked through unlike the beef). He loved it of course. He isn’t much of an offal fan so he wouldn’t go for others. Personally, the only place in Melbourne that does chicken pho better than beef pho is Mekong. To me, beef over chicken anytime.

I don’t really like to add anything to my pho – not even the basil or the beansprouts. Especially not chilli sauce and hoisin sauce. I believe the broth needs to be treated with respect. Sometimes I would add the chilli to give it heat but it’s the only ingredient that doesn’t mask the stock flavour. Josh likes his with a bit of basil and lemon and we both like to nibble on the beansprouts but never add it to the soup.

And I always finish my soup.

Pho 888 Box Hill, 552 Station Street, Box Hill VIC

I have heard, and read, many a good thing about Red Spice Road. The deal was clinched when a few colleagues had gone over for a dinner early one evening and came back absolutely raving about their early bird menu. We were going to see Beatlemania* on the night so we thought we would pop in for an early dinner. They have an early bird dinner special which is three shared main courses and shared entree for $25.

Look, let me get straight to the point before you read on: it was one of the worst dining experiences I have ever had. In my 2.0 words: epic fail. And I will spend the rest of this post telling you why.

(betel leaves with chicken filling)

We got there at around 6pm which was the time we made a booking for. The dining room was nice and spacious and practically empty. We were probably one of the three groups of people dining there at the time. My first thought was oh no communal table. Be aware that all seats are communal (except for the private room). Personally I’m not a fan of communal table unless the main is less than $10. However, that’s not by any stretch of imagination my main gripe.

Believe it or not, all of the empty tables and seats, they seated two of us the first two seats near the entrance. Literally 1 metre away from the cash register and waiters’ bench where cutleries, water jugs and all sorts of things are kept. Because it wasn’t busy, we constantly had about 3-4 waiters congregating right behind our backs chattering away.

(the bar – not very far away)

Worse still, the bar in the next room was going absolute full blast. The noise was so loud and distracting. The music was very fast and just pounding and uncomfortable. That wasn’t the only thing fast. The service was extremely fast. In fact, it was so uncomfortably fast. If you can imagine that. Our entree arrived within 5 minutes of ordering. Our mains no more than 2 minutes later. I didn’t even finish taking photos of the entree before our mains arrived. The second our plate looked half way empty, one of the very efficient waiter wanted to clear it away. I had to keep telling them to leave us (the fuck) alone. Really, by the end of the meal, I was that pissed off. Even Mekong on Swanston St. doesn’t rush you that badly.

(crispy pork belly in sweet sauce with Asian-style coleslaw)

It felt extremely rush, in and out. And oh, because it seemed we had the worst seats in the house and there were about 200 other empty seats on the other side of the dining room? I asked if we could move. The reply was no. They were fully booked. Really? At 6pm? When the after work drink crowd was still going full force next door? And that we were there for the early bird which required us to leave by 7.15 anyway? That’s right. No can do. We would not move you.

To add insults to the injury, the table was ‘nipple height’ (Josh’s words, not mine). Absolutely uncomfortable eating. Me being a bit shorter than most people, the table was almost my collar bone height. Imagine that.

All right, I guess by now, having read all that, you would want to know how the food was. First of all, I’m Thai so I am a little biased. The concept of Red Spice Road is pan-Asian (mostly Thai influence) so in a way it takes all the interesting bits of South East Asian food and put them together on a plate. Because these flavours are nothing new to me, I wasn’t blown away.

(beef, sweet potato and pumpkin curry)

Don’t get me wrong, the food was all right – some dishes good and some average. The entree consisted of a bite of minced chicken filling on a betel leaf. It was good. Josh took a bite and proclaimed it to be good. And I concurred. But really, that was as  outstanding as it got. I liked the kaffir lime-y and curry-pastey flavours. But well, there was only one bite per person. What more could I say?

Our three mains arrived together: the pork belly was excellent. It was succulent on the inside and crispy on the outside. But it was covered in this ridiculous sweet sauce. The concept I’m sure, came from moo waan (sweet pork). But it didn’t have the depth of the flavour it should have. A moo waan is generally simmered in the sauce until it’s lovely and caramelised, the pork and sauce fuse together but this pork would have been fried and then just coated in the sauce. It was relatively one-dimensional. Its saving grace was the nice, fresh salad on top. Was the dish good? Yes it was (although Josh didn’t like it but that’s him disliking pork belly in general) but was it good enough to put up with such uncomfortable surrounding and pushy service? Hell no.

(mapo tofu – sorry about lack of focus – extremely poor lighting)

Our beef and pumpkin curry was average. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t any better than your neighbourhood Thai restaurant. Sorry.

Then there was the ugly duckling of a sister, the mapo tofu. This dish was seriously disappointing. Imagine all the things that made a mapo tofu dish nice (the flavourful mince, the kick of the Szechuan peppercorn, the soft, silky tofu) and take all of that away. It was just tofu, mince and some indescriptive sauce. Nice try. But no.

(mocktail – with kiwi, coconut milk etc. – $7?)

I also had a mocktail, which was quite all right. I wonder if the orchid was dyed with food colouring or just any random colouring. It was taken away before I had a chance to finish it too. Oh one thing though, the jasmine rice served with the main courses were rather good. I just thought I might throw that in so I don’t sound too negative! Haha.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief as soon as I walked out of the door, back to normalcy. My heart beat started to calm and my head started to feel better. We only spent about 40 minutes in there because we just couldn’t take it anymore and I guess that was their Friday night business model – herd them in, herd them out. If you don’t mind the communal, nipple height table and feel that the food seems interesting enough for you, I recommend a week night. But for me?

Like I said: epic fail.

Red Spice Road, 27 McKillop Street Melbourne VIC 3000

* Quick Beatlemania review: Great show. Enjoyed it immensely. Although the drummer needs to learn not to bash. He ruined the music somewhat.

Nicole and I have now more or less gotten into a habit of going to Queen Victoria Market for our fish, I have been going back to Colour of Earth a couple of times instead of the usual hot dog and borek (cos you know you cannot possible eat that every time you go to Queen Vic. Admit it, some of you do).

Colour of Earth has a lot of interesting little pizzas (or as I have been corrected by Liz, the proper plural for pizza is pizze). They have a few different pizza base including gluten free ones made from black rice, maize, etc. So you can actually buy takeaway base and they have psychedelic colour. Very awesome.

(Cosmopolitan – $6.80)

On the day (and I have been back a couple of times since but I haven’t been taking photos) I decided on Cosmopolitan, which was black rice base. It looks kinda funny but it tasted really good. It had ricotti, pesto, mushrooms, mozzarella and sweet chilli sauce. I know sweet chilli sauce on pizza? What the hell? But it was good.

(florentine – $6.50?)

Nicole went for Florentine, which was goat’s cheese, spinach, ricotta, err…  I can’t remember what else. Suffice to say it was good to. I have had a few other pizze from there and they have been good. Josh had the asparagus one (no picture, sorry) and he really liked it. And he is even fussier than me. If that’s even possible.

It’s one of my new favourite lunch hang out now. There were so many choices and most of them seem good. They even have sweet pizza. Unfortunately, some times you wait a bit for them to heat up your pizza and you hang around in front of the shop and there are lots of people, it could get a bit claustrophobic. And then you have to fight people for seats. But that’s Queen Vic Market for you.

(mixed salad – $5)

I also got a little takeaway pack of mixed salad from the Borek shop, which sells Middle Eastern/Turkish type food. The salad had (from left) black eyed peas, brown rice, Turkish (Israeli/pearl) couscous, yellow lentil and broad beans. Each of them had their own dressing and other bit. It was quite good. We didn’t eat too much of it and took the rest back and ate it later during the day.

Nicole also got some doughnuts for the team. The one thing that pisses me off the most about the mericans is that very few of them know how to spell doughnuts and I’m glad these guys spelled it properly. For the record, American spelling of doughnut is not donut. It’s just silly chain doughnut stores not spelling them properly.

Anyway, damn these doughnuts are good. It’s so doughy and chewy and just fantastic. But I try to stay away from them because I can easily eat half a dozen and that would be thoroughly bad bad bad.

Colour of Earth, Shop 97, Deli Hall, Queen Victoria Market, Corner Elizabeth and Victoria Streets
Melbourne VIC 3000

I make this dish when the vegetables are really nice and fresh. I guess it’s my version of pasta primavera. Last week, we ended up with some really good asparagus from the farmers’ market. I also made it with broccoli and asparagus since. It’s superb. I know it doesn’t look all that interesting to many carnivores out there but when made wit fresh asparagus and broccoli, the vegetables are beautifully sweet.

For two:

1. 6 thick asparagus
2. 1/2 head of broccoli, cut into small florets
3. 3 shallots, sliced
4. 1 tbsp of pine nuts
5. 1 small lemon
6. 250g of spaghetti
7. 3 tbsp of spinach and almond pesto*
8. 80 g. of butter
9. 1 tbsp of olive oil
10. 1/2 tsp of salt

Use a peeler and peel back the tough bit of the asparagus stems. Bring a large pot of  salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook for about 5 minutes. Before blanching the whole asparagus stems and broccoli florets in the boiling water for 1 minute. Remove the vegetables, set aside.

While the pasta is cooked, add olive oil to a frying pan and sautee the shallot slices gently for 5 minutes. Add pine nuts and butter to make sauce. Grate the lemon zest into the sauce and add lemon juice. Turn off the heat.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain completely. Toss through the pesto with the pasta. Add the pasta into the asparagus, broccoli, lemon and shallot mixture. Taste and season as appropriate. Serve with grated parmesan.

* I bought this at the farmers’ market but you can substitute this with any mild flavoured pesto (i.e. not basil). I also found a recipe for spinach and almond pesto that looks about right for what I bought.

Maya had just come back from Raya at home in Singapore and she was desperate for a good cup of Melbourne coffee. So during a lunch time (she had an extra day off the lucky thing).

We decided on Centre Place/Degraves St. area since it’s the closest place where there is the most number of cafés in small areas. We landed at Cafe No. 5 because it looked nice and cosy.

(sorry about the picture, it’s the only one I have of the wall)

The shop itself was rather funky. We plonked ourselves on the communal table. The walls were adorn with paintings and other interesting artwork. Maya promptly ordered a coffee. I believe it was her second one in about 3 hours of landing in Melbourne and since I spent 13 months in Singapore, I can vouch that Starbucks is considered good coffee in Singapore. So enough said about the state of coffee affairs in the little island nation.

(eggs florentine – $12.50)

The menu was relatively limited so I opted for a breakfast dish: eggs florentine, which was two poached eggs, spinach and hollandaise sauce on toast. Boy there was a LOT of spinach and I loved it. I swear there was about a salad bag full of spinach on my plate. The hollandaise was a bit on the thin side and I wish there was more (to go with the plentiful spinach) but I thought it was all right (hey I usually eat the jarred one, so of  course it was all right). It strangely reminded me of the instant Ikea meatball sauce.

The eggs unfortunately were a bit over cooked. I personally believe poached eggs must be runny. Am I wrong here? I rarely eat breakfast out (Why would I? Josh makes anything I ask! I am a lucky girl) so maybe I’m not the best person but I still think these eggs were overcooked.

(tuna and corn panino – $7.50)

Josh ordered a tuna panino. I had a bite. It was rather good but there wasn’t a lot of it. And for $7.50, you could get other HUGE sandwiches in other cafe in the area. But then not all of them had such a funky, chill-out interior good for catching up.

(chicken schnitzel – $7.50)

Maya ordered a chicken schnitzel and avocado panino. It was also good but she barely ate half of it. But the poor girl had just landed in the morning and had had two coffees already, she could be forgiven. I’m sure the coffee was good for her just coming back from Singapore though!

In other news, Maya bought me a pack of five Ibumie Mi Goreng from Singapore. I am so freaking stoked about it. It’s sooooooooo much better than Indomie Mi Goreng. Seriously. Does anyone know where I can buy Ibumie Mi Goreng in Melbourne? I have never seen one.

Cafe No. 5, 5 Centre Place, Melbourne VIC 3000

Som tum, I’m led to believe, is actually Laotian in origin. The salad of green papaya is actually quite common among a few countries in South East Asia. The Thai version flowed through from the north east of the country, bordering Laos*

So when the dish reached Central Thailand, it became, well, I guess bastardised hence the word Som Tum Thai (as opposed to Som Tum Lao). The main difference is the inclusion of sweetness by use of sugar and the addition of peanuts. Most som tum peddlers in Thailand will sell different varieties of som tum. This one is my favourite.

(clockwise from left: payaya and carrot, palm sugar, snake beans, tomato, lemon, roasted peanuts, dried prawns, chilli and garlic)

I’m not too sure referring to this dish as a salad does it justice. The vegetables and other ingredients are pounded in a pestle and mortar with seasonings (fish sauce, palm sugar, lime juice, tamarind) added one at a time while being pounded and churned. Like Josh said ‘it’s strange how you people beat the hell out of your salad.’

(fish sauce, tamarind paste and my awesome pestle and mortar)

I have this little gadget that slices the green payaya into strips which can be bought at Asian grocery store. I haven’t got a picture of it at the moment but I’ll get it up later.

I used a mixture of green unripe papaya with a little bit of carrot for colour. The addition of carrot is also a recent bastardisation but I like it. Just don’t go overboard with it. If you can’t get your hands on unripe papaya, I’m told (by people on the internet) that kohrabi is a good substitute. I also used a granite pestle and mortar but traditionally clay mortar and wooden pestle is used. It just means I can pound the hell out of it faster that’s all!

(lonely chilli and garlic to start)

Ingredients for 1 serve:

1. 1 cup of shredded green papaya
2. 2 tbsp of shredded carrot
3. 1 ripe tomato, chopped
4. 3 snake beans, chopped
5. 1/2 lemon
6. 1 tbsp of toasted peanuts*
7. 1/2 tbsp of very good quality dried prawns (Josh thinks it’s horrid, more for me)
8. 1 bird’s eye chilli (um, this depends on how much of a pussy you are. I am a bit of a pussy. By Thai standard anyway)
9. 1/2 clove of garlic
10. 1 tbsp of fish sauce
11. 2 tsp of tamarind paste
12. 1 tsp of coconut palm sugar (I have gula melaka, it’s not as sweet so I added a little bit of normal sugar as well)

(pound)

Before you start, have all the ingredients ready. Realise that som tum is a very personal thing (hence one serving at a time). So tasting is extremely important. My Mum wouldn’t have sugar in hers at all. In fact, in Thailand when you order a som tum you literally tell them your flavour preference (‘very hot, not so sweet’ or ‘very sour and salty but just one chilli’).

(pound some more)

Pound together the garlic and chilli. Add dried prawns, half of the peanuts, tomato and snake beans. Pound until the tomatoes are slightly pulpy. Add sugar, fish sauce, tamarind and lemon juice to complete the dressing. Add papaya and carrot. Pound. Use a spoon to churn the salad over. Mix and pound a few more times for good measure.

Oh hell. Just go here.

(a perfect som tum)

Serve with some more peanuts sprinkled on top. Yum. Perfect diet food. Every Thai girl knows about the som tum diet. Just don’t eat it with the usual sticky rice and char-grilled chicken combo. However, let me tell you, it is perfect with both. Also great with rice cooked in coconut milk. I’ll have to make them some times.

* I was working at in a Thai diplomatic mission office when one lady asked me if a person with a ‘lay-oz’ passport needs a visa to Thailand. I had no freaking idea where the hell Lay-oz was and frantically looked up the map nearby (was new at the job, you see) and couldn’t find such country. The closest I found was Lesotho and she was getting frustrated with me until I asked her to spell it out which was when the story became clear. So I’m writing what I should have told her then, the s is silent.
** Toast peanuts on a non-stick pan with a few drops of oil until they turn slightly brown. They will continue to cook off the heat so make sure you remove them early rather than late. Store all nuts in the fridge. They don’t last very long.

It was Sunday night and I feel like going out for dinner. We figured since we had a very expensive night out at, um, well I can’t remember where anymore, we wanted something cheap and tasty.

So I had a quick look at Very Cheap Eats and decided on an interesting sounding place called The Rasoi so we hopped into a car and drove ourselves down to up to Bridge Rd cornered Church St. We got there and guess what? There was no Rasoi! In its place, there was an Indian restaurant called ‘Curry King’. Frankly speaking, I hesitated. I mean, wouldn’t you? I generally tend to stay away from restaurants whose names bear zero creativity and I happened to think Curry King falls into that category.

We went in anyway and I’m glad we did. I’m really not too sure why the place is called Curry King now but it seemed like it was still the same restaurant as the menu printed all of the restaurants under its chain. There seemed to be quite a few of them and one of them (not this one) was called Gujarati Rasoi. My guess is that they renamed themselves somehow. The restaurant was rather nice with old brick walls and minimal decorations. It was almost empty saved for a couple of other tables. It had a big flat screen with Indian music videos playing of course (as you do) but overall it was quite charming.

Our waiters were very nice and charming. We were brought grilled papadum (not deep-fried) while Josh took forever to decide on a dish (as usual). I decided that I would try something I never had before and ordered goat karahi. Josh had decided on chicken korma. We also ordered pea pulao, plain naan and garden salad. We were asked if we wanted our curries mild, medium or hot. Never the one to back down from the challenge, we went for hot.

(goat karahi – $11?)

Before I write about this dish, I often wonder why the word goat is now being used synonymous as goat meat in restaurants. I would have thought the correct term would be chevon. But no matter. The dish was beautiful. The meat was meltingly tender with just the right amount of spices. It had green capsicum and onion. I can’t say I have ever tried a karahi dish before but I am totally sold on this dish.

(chicken korma – $9?)

The chicken korma was also very good. I make chicken korma at home quite often so I try not to order korma at restaurants but who am I to stop Josh from being boring? It was lovely and creamy. The chicken was also very tender and excellent.

(Pea pulao – $3)

The rice was perfectly made. The peas were not overcooked like they often are and the rice was just right and not too oily. It went perfectly well with the curries.

(garden salad – $4)

I also ordered a garden salad to cut through the richness of the curries. I can’t say I have ever been too impressed with salads served in Indian restaurants and this one was no different. It was very tangy and it had some spices in it. Having said that, it was much better than your typical Indian restaurant salad. I didn’t order it because I expected it to be good but I just needed some greens to go with our meal.

(garlic naan – $3)

We went through our rice and our plain naan rather quickly and there were still some curries left. So we ordered an additional garlic naan. Thankfully it came very quickly. Steamingly hot and fluffly out of the oven with garlicky butter topping. It was absolutely divine and the highlight of our meal. All the yummy garlicky goodness was absolutely perfect for the meal.

(gulab jamun – $4?)

By now we were absolutely full but me being me, I couldn’t help wanting some gulab jamun to end the meal. So we ordered a single serve of gulab jamun to share. To our surprise, they brought us two bowls, each containing a gulab jamun. This was one serve but as I told the waiter we would share it, he had kindly given us in separate servings. Now that is what I call good service. The gulab jamun was nice and sweet as it should be. It didn’t have the cardamon/spice taste that I like but it was still good.

Our total bill came to $40 and a few cents. The food was yummy and filling and not to mention cheap. What really impressed me the most though, was the service and the surrounding. Generally a place this cheap would not be so nice and well serviced. Our waiters were attentive throughout the night and kept bringing us water every time it ran out.

We would definitely return. I was so impressed with the food, service and how amazingly cheap it was.

Curry King, 281 Bridge Road Richmond 3121 Vic