james test

Monday night looked like a good one for De Orchid takeaway, so I gave them a call as Michael walked home. Unfortunately their phone went unanswered, eventually returning a message that they were closed due to unforeseen circumstances for a week or two. Darn. It seems that someone else was having the very same conundrum, finding our blog via a google search for indian delivery carlton melbourne just eight minutes after they searched for "de orchid" carlton ! I wonder if they tried the Balti Indian Cafe as google recommended? Instead I took a look at our fridge, papered with takeaway leaflets as it is, and chose the Classic Curry Company. Michael and I first sampled the Classic's curries even before we moved to Melbourne. We were lodging nearby while attending a conference and had somehow heard of it as a local purveyor of cheap and cheerful Indian food. Like Red Pepper , it was an unadorned fit-out filled with members of the local Indian community, and big pots ...

Even though we hit the jackpot last time with De Orchid , Cindy and I thought we should try out Spicy Junction (which was closed for renovations at our last attempt). The menu promised a range of vego curries for the same kind of prices that most of the local Indian shops offer. I decided to sample three (enough to ensure that we'd both get lunch the next day): the vegetable vindaloo, the navratan korma and the malai kofta. They were all... orange. I was surprised by the orangeness of it all, and Cindy was surprised by the kick in the vindaloo (which was supposed to be mild). The vindaloo and the korma were both full of the kind of small vegie cubes that instantly remind me of McCains frozen vegetables, even if they've been freshy chopped. The tiny chunks also tend to remove any scope for differentiation, so that each mouthful is just orange 'vegetable'. I much prefer chunks of plainly identifiable potato or cauliflower. The kofta fared a little better - creamy a...

30/06/2013: Over at Fitzroyalty , Brian reports that Tandoori Times has now closed. Thursday evening involved a couple of aborted plans, culminating in a night at home with home-delivered Indian. This time we sampled the wares of Tandoori Times. Their menu (available online) boasts about 20 vegetarian mains as well as the usual appetisers, breads and rice. With a base of basmati rice and garlic naan, we went for (from top to bottom in the pic) sabzi makhani ($8.50), Punjabi daal tadka ($7.90), tandoori gobhi ($9.90) and paneer pumpum ($7.50). The pumpum, battered and fried cheese, was a fairly chewy patty with an acidic tang and chilli punch. The curries were likewise quite hot, pleasant but not memorable; the naan well-flavoured but a bit rubbery. The highlight of the meal was undoubtedly the tandoori cauliflower: tender and super-tangy with a smoky finish. The leftovers of this dish were in high demand for Friday's lunch! Vegetarian tandoori options are something of a rar...

New Year's Day saw us back in Melbourne, with two guests in Emma and Simon and no energy for culinary creation. Thus, we opted for the lazy option of home-delivered takeaway Indian from Fitz Curry Cafe. Fitz Curry has featured previously in our quest for the best Indian takeaway in Melbourne and, while it's no Punjabi Palace , it's leading my mental rankings so far. After a quick look at our previous post, we decided to order five curries between four to ensure delicious leftovers for our disturbingly premature first days back at work. The orders for the evening were: kahari mushroom, paneer jelfrezi, malai kofta, spinach kofta curry and mumbai chicken (for Simon!). The kofta in the spinach kofta were massive and thus a little dry in the middle despite the oceans of sauce they were swimming in. The rest of the veg options were pretty tasty - particularly the kahari mushroom, with well-cooked mushrooms and a range of other vegies scattered throughout. Everything was ...

Making risotto cakes and gelato earlier in the week had me all cooked out, and I still needed to bake some more muesli for breakfast. Sufficient excuse for a takeaway dinner, I'd say. I denied myself an afternoon snack with the promise of an early Indian meal, and wandered over to the Balti Indian cafe when I finished work. The cafe has a very pleasant interior and I probably would have enjoying eating in, but I was all psyched up to go home, maybe watch what remained of The Cook and the Chef, and get some muesli into the oven. I picked out vegetable samosas, navrattan korma, basmati rice and a plain naan and they were ready in about 10 minutes. I particularly enjoyed the samosas: the pastry was thin, crispy and not flaky; the centre was mostly smooth flavoured potatoes. The rice and bread both provided good support to the curry without being remarkable in themselves. I was underwhelmed by the korma: the potato pieces were very firm and I'm not a fan of peas; the spic...

Cindy had biscuit baking to do on Tuesday night, so we opted for a lazy night of takeaway. Unfortunately neither of us felt much like eating anything based on rice, meaning Indian and Thai were off the agenda, leaving us hunting for some good takeaway pizza. We'd tried Mr. Natural pizza previously, but given Melbourne's (and particularly Carlton's) reputation as pizza-town, were pretty sure we could do better. None of the Italian places on Lygon Street jumped out at us as being good takeaway options, so we gave Umago in Fitzroy a shot. I walk past it most afternoons on my way home from work, and have never been that excited by its slightly tacky looking exterior, but its menu looked impressive and they delivered, so that was good enough for us. There are four gourmet vego options, plus a couple of plainer choices, though the big 'V' next to the seafood pizza bothers me irrationally. We went for a Mexican (beans, corn chips, capsicum, avocado, sweet chilli and ...

A squally, rainy Friday evening put paid to our vague plans for a jaunt through the city and we scurried home to spend an evening lounging about the house instead. We had some vague plans for cooking dinner, but the lack of soy bacon at the local Safeway sapped Cindy's enthusiasm for home made burgers, so it was time for more takeaway. I've been hoping for an opportunity to sample one of the three vegetarian pizza places in Melbourne and we're outside the delivery limits of both Plush Pizza and Nostralis , leaving us with only Mr. Natual in North Fitzroy. They boast wholemeal bases, rennet-free cheese and fifteen different vego pizzas and offer two medium pizzas delivered for $20. Score. I chose the broccoli pizza (tomato, cheese, broccoli, mushroom, peppers, onion, olives, feta, parsley, garlic, herbs, sesame seeds) and Cindy wanting something plain, considered the marguerita, before opting for the mushroom. Unfortunately, I got distracted and ordered her the margu...

The observant reader will notice a preponderance of Indian food within these pages . I’ve always been something of a curry connoisseur, but Cindy’s Indian enthusiasm is a relatively recent development, stemming from a trip to the US that involved sharing a house with an Indian American and spending 10 days staying a few blocks from Manhattan’s Little India. Going veg has no doubt played a part in her conversion as well – you’re rarely short delicious vegetarian options when you choose Indian takeaway. Whatever the cause, it’s meant that one of our first tasks on arriving in Melbourne has been to seek out a convenient and delicious Indian takeaway option. So far, The Fitz Curry Café is leading the race. It’s a vaguely organic-themed Indian place about 15 minutes walk from our flat. The vegetarian menu is a strong point, with thirteen choices (including two types of kofta!), and the prices are reasonable ($8-$10 for a vegie curry). After a mammoth cooking day yesterday and a ...

In our first homeless weeks in Melbourne we stayed at the Eltham home of Carol, my aunt. We did our best to provide her with grateful dinners but eventually resorted to Indian take-away. Bhoj Templestowe is a sister restaurant to Bhoj Docklands, which was favourably reviewed in Cheap Eats 2006 and we were further enthused by the low prices. We picked up a huge bag of food, including complimentary pappadums and dal. I chose an appetiser that I’d never seen before, Sounth Papdi. These were small flour shells with a potato filling, topped with a yoghurt sauce and served cold. The shells and filling were quite bland, but fresh coriander and a tamarind tang to the yoghurt gave the papdi flavour. They were a refreshing change from the hot and heavy samosas I usually order from Indian restaurants. For dinner, clockwise from centre: palak paneer, malai paneer kofta, vegetable korma, saffron rice and garlic nan. The korma was pleasant and mild, with a discernable taste of almonds that I enjoyed...