Banana Leaf Indian Restaurant, Currie St

Speed. Price. Quality.

These are the three immutable variables of any given task - including having lunch. Usually, two of these variables can be delivered at the cost of a third. For example - you could have a really fast, amazingly delicious lunch but you'll probably pay a little more than you usually would.

I'm not sure that Banana Leaf Indian Restaurant have heard of this theory...

A friend and I passed by Banana Leaf on our way to lunch along Leigh St a few weeks ago. Outside Banana Leaf looks like any common-or-garden-variety Indian eatery - but the inside is a decorative Taj Mahal (light was awful for photos so don't have one - sorry. There are a few photos on their website though - http://www.bananaleafindianrestaurant.com.au/ ). Our interest was piqued and we resolved to return.

I ordered a cheese thosai (for those of you playing at home a thosai or sometimes dosa is a South Indian rice flour pancake) served with dhal, coconut sambal and chilli sauce (for just $8.50 which meets the price variable). And then I waited. And waited. And waited some more - and the opportunity to deliver on the speed variable rapidly past by.

According to my speed/price/quality lunch should therefore have been pretty tasty. It was actually rather ho hum. Not bad - just average.



I was expecting a thosai stuffed with soft Indian cheese - and received one with a rather mean sprinkle of cheddar cheese. The dhal was watery and tasteless but the coconut sambal and chilli sauce packed heaps of flavour.

I'm acutely conscious that I'm judging Banana Leaf on one dish on one day so please don't take my word as gospel but in my opinion you can better faster, cheaper, better curry from the Indian eateries in either the Southern Cross or China Town Food Courts. 

Dozo Sushi Express, Pirie St

A conversation with a fellow twitterer (have we come to consensus on what we call people who tweet? Twitterers? Tweeters? Twits?) made me realise that Pirie St is a bit of a blind spot for me. To restore my eating vision I ventured off to Dozo Sushi Express for lunch.

Armed with the knowledge from a colleague that I should get a bento box and skip over the sushi I ordered the Japanese curry bento. Served with dumplings, potato salad, rice and pickles this was I promising looking lunch.



The easiest way to describe the Japanese chicken curry is to take you back to an Australian 1970's dinner party. In those days curry was virtually unknown to Australian diners and our attempts at cooking curry were clumsy - gritty and sickly sweet with a pinch of Keens Curry Powder more for colour than flavour (but no more than a pinch! For all we knew foreign spices could lead to... dancing), no chilli (dancing again presumably) and dotted with sultanas. The Japanese curry was just like this - except much, much better. No grittiness, the sweetness was handled with a deft touch, there certainly more flavour than a pinch of curry powder and more than a suggestion of heat, and no bloody sultanas. An excellent curry.



I love Japanese potato salad and this was a good one - rich, creamy and dotted with peas and corn. The crunchy yet creamy texture of the pickle was a pleasant surprise - I don't think I ever described a pickle as creamy before but this one definitely was. The miso soup was hot, salty and riddled with creamy tofu and seaweed.



The dumplings were a real disappointment. They were dry and cold and flavourless. The dough had the texture of cardboard and withered lump of meat inside had nothing to recommend it. There is no excuse to serve a dumpling this awful.

For 10 bucks a bento box at Dozo is a reasonable price for pretty tasty food - except for the awful, awful dumplings. The seating space is limited at Dozo so be prepared to either squish in, wait for seating or take your lunch away.

I noticed that Dozo has Japanese sandwiches on the menu. I have no idea what this would be but I'm curious enough that I'll be coming back to try these soon.

Mystic India, China Town Food Court

Apparently the sandwich was 250 years old today. Had I heard about this before lunch I would have had a sandwich rather ordering from Mystic India in the China Town Food Court. Not that that was a bad decision mind you. In fact, it was a good decision.

I ordered a thali - a stainless steel tray with different compartments for different curries, raita and rice. In addition to the rice and raita chicken tikka masala, spinach dhal and paneer mutter filled out my thali.



Nicely charred before being slowed cooked in masala sauce the chicken was succulent and tender. And there were actual fragments of spices in the curry sauce which had the right amount of heat for lunch - hot enough that the residual heat left a tantalising tingle on my tongue but not so hot that it sat like a molten brick in the gut for the rest of the day.

The spinach flavour came strongly through the savoury dhal. Rather than being brittle and chalky the paneer was creamy and soft but I found the (I think masala-style because I'm pretty 'mutter' means peas) sauce too sweet.

Last time I ordered a thali from Mystic India the raita was disappointingly thin. Not so this time. It was thick, tangy, flecked with carrot and cucumber and provided a cooling counterpoint to the spicy curry. I was suspicious of the poppadom - it looked as though it had been steamed soft in the bain-marie but it had a deceptively satisfying crunch.

My one real gripe with the meal was that the rice was basically cold but once I'd doused the rice in the remainder if the spicy masala sauce and cooling raita it didn't really matter.

This generally excellent thali is good value at $10 and the wait for food at Mystic India is invariably short.