Tandoori Temptations

This post isn't about a particular date night.  It is however, about a place we go nearly every week.  By nearly every week I mean it's more often every week than it is fortnightly.  I'm pretty confident when I say we haven't gone longer than maybe 3 weeks without it (terrible, I know). 

Tandoori Temptations.  

It's a very small place out the front of the Salisbury cinemas that just looks like a standard little Indian place. It's not.  It should have chain restaurants around the country, or at least a couple of fancy pants places like Beyond India (fyi - Temptations butter chicken absolutely OWNS Beyond India's).

As much as we frequent there, I have not had a single bad, average or okay meal.  Granted, I have only tried the butter chicken, but it's a butter chicken that makes your mouth water after each bite.   I don't even have to be hungry to crave it, and since being there, no other Indian compares for me.   It's the type of meal that you can't stop eating, and in that respect its dangerous.  

Why I love the butter chicken so much.  It has this smooth melt in your mouth kind of sauce where the tomato flavour is present but not key and it's not too creamy but it definitely is creamy at the same time and there's butter in there for sure but oh my goodness I could eat it forever.  The sauce just goes so well with the tender tandoori chicken, not to mention the garlic naan!

Paul has tried a few others, he's a bit more adventurous than I am and has found favourites in the chicken tikka masala and spinach chicken, but he generally goes back to the butter chicken. 

I'm no pro on what constitutes the best butter chicken, because everyone has different tastes and looks for different things when it comes to a meal, but of the other indian places I've been, this is by far the best in my books.  If we do an Indian date night now at the end of the night its like "how was that?" "yeah really really good" "temptations good?" "haha! no". 

To top it off to dine in and get 2 mains, 2 drinks (of the fizzy variety), a large steamed rice and 1 garlic naan it comes to around $43 for dine in.  It's a bit cheaper for take away but still for us that feels like a ridiculously fair price, especially considering its something we both crave and always, always enjoy. 

If you're in the north or north east areas of Adelaide, give it a go.  The staff are friendly the food is amazing and the price is good!

Belmondo Ristorante

It started with a recommendation.  It became a consideration when we found out it was Italian food.  It was a definite when it was in the north eastern ‘burbs – close to home.

I hate being late.  Usually, if I’m only a couple of minutes early, I feel like I’m late.  I don’t like it when others are late either, but sometimes it’s uncontrollable and things just get in the way and you become late.  This was not one of those times.  We were literally both ready and just hanging around and for whatever reason left a little late and by 7pm (the time of our reservation) we were still 10 minutes away. I hated to be that customer buuuut we called and said we were late and changed the reservation to 7.15 so it’s not that bad.  And then we got there at 7.08 so in the end we were early! Fantastic.

It was my favourite kind of restaurant, warm with a mix of smells that just go together, and not too crowded (though it would have been if it was full).  I liked our spot; it was against a wall out of the jumble of tables.  I’m not really a fan of sitting right in the middle of a restaurant, like when everyone is either shuffling past you to get to the bathroom or to the front door. And from where we were I could just hear other people’s conversations so that was a bit of fun too.

I should also mention – no vouchers or discounts of any kind this evening!

my hair clashed with my surroundings

We got an entrée.  I wanted something different and was seduced by the deep fried camembert.  I knew it wouldn’t be good for me, I went into it with that in mind and an “it’s date night so I don’t care” attitude.  Little did I know the deep fried cheese goodness was a whole round of camembert.  I was thinking it might be a couple of bigish slices.  No.  It was the whole thing.  It wasn’t something that turned my tastebuds on enough to keep eating it, but I definitely had more that one slice.  The jam that was served with it was black currant and while that was generally wonderful and flavoursome, the texture of it was very bitty.   But it wasn’t grainy as such, but it certainly wasn’t smooth.  Anyway I didn’t like it too much purely because of the texture, but at the same time I couldn’t eat the camembert without it.  It was good.  It wasn’t all I had dreamed of and more, but it was something different and we went for it.

our wheel of deep fried cheese

For a main I wanted pasta.  I wanted pizza.  I wanted something different.  I had to go for something different but not too different.  Lamb shanks.  Oh my goodness lamb shanks.  Melt in your mouth, barely need to use a knife kind of lamb shanks.  I figured the meal was kind of healthy because it was lamb and shiraz and tomato sugo and mashed potato and vegetables. What isn’t health about that?! (The coke I had with it probably wasn’t too healthy… or the deep fried camembert before that… but anyway…).  It tasted so homemade and was such a great hearty winter meal that I was happy to pay the $29 for it.  However as a side note my mum makes awesome lamb shanks and they cost me nothing so I wouldn’t make a habit of it. 

Paul had the Gnocchi (with sundried tomatoes, ham, garlic and spinach in a cream sauce) aaaaand basically didn’t speak until he was done eating.  

I’ve never been a huge fan of gnocchi, when I feel like pasta it’s not something I think of.  But Paul loves the stuff and from what he said – or didn’t say – it seemed like Belmondo had it right.  It was a really creamy dish, so after Paul had finished most of the camembert and then this calorific, creamy masterpiece he was done and dusted with food for the night.

Himalayan Kitchen

We went for something completely different this date night… There was no scoopon. 

However, a little while ago we purchased a fine little book of entertainment, an Entertainment Book if you will.  It was high time to break it in.  Paul picked the place - the Himalayan Kitchen on Melbourne Street.

I had no idea what type of food it was and neither did Paul, so it was a very much a … well lets see how this goes… kind of night… but sometimes those are the best nights, right?  So it was on and we headed to Melbourne Street. It was really close to that car park that's behind.. something on Melbourne Street so that was nice and handy because it was quite a crisp night. 

It looks small from the outside but goes a fair way back, and was warm and comfortable inside. Generally, it was quite dim lighting. There were a total of two lamps on the walls and we got one of them, (the lamp was conveniently located at around head height so half the night was spent sitting with my head at an angle so it didn't glare too much).   But it really wasn't a bad thing, it made reading menus easy and we felt a little special getting one of the two. 

It was lovely and warm inside, but definitely bring a jacket if you're going in the colder weather.  As soon as you walk out the back to go to the bathroom, it gets freezing.  Ice cold, shivering worthy freezing.  You warm up pretty quick once you're back in, but still.  Bring a jacket. 

So it turned out to be Tibetan and Nepalese food, which didn't help me much because I've never eaten anything like that either… So I thought.  Reading the menu it seemed very similar to Indian and Asian foods.  There was curries and spring rolls and pakoras etc etc. 

A few of the entrees looked so good, there was a handy little try it all option which was called Four Seasons, which was a combination tray of (what I assume is) their most popular entrees. 

It had: "Momo" which was homemade steamed dumplings, "Sekuwa", tender chicken marinated with yoghurt, ginger and masala, "Bereco Roti" which is spring rolls and "Pakora" which were onion, spring onion and potato fritters.  

Every single one was so delicious.

The entrees are between $8 - $11.  The Four Seasons was $10.50 and you got one each of the best so I was pretty happy with that value, especially because they were all so yummy!  The chicken was so tender, the spring rolls were crisp and it all just tasted fresh.  You know when you have a really greasy spring roll and you end up with the grease all on your fingers and you can feel it in your mouth and you just kinda hate yourself afterwards?  It wasn't anything like that. 

We had a pretty cool waitress, she seemed either new or awkward or both and had big trendy glasses and her work top was just that bit too big for her.  She stopped serving us about halfway through the night so we might have ended up being a creepy over friendly couple.  Happens to the best of us.  

The mains!  Oh the mains.  After such tasty entrees my hopes were high. I had ordered the Festival Chicken, which was chicken cooked with red chilli, basil, seasonal vegetables and tomato and Paul had Pokhara Ko Kukhura (also known as Coconut Chicken). 

I was told that the Festival Chicken was only a bit spicy, even though it listed red chilli as a main ingredient.  That's okay I said to myself.  What's a little bit of chilli to someone who doesn't eat spicy food, we'll be right.

It was spicy.  It was like, if I ate a few mouthfuls one after another, the flavour of the meal disappeared and if Paul had asked me what it tasted like I would have to respond with "spicy, it tastes like spicy".  If I took a break every now and then and let my mouth recover then I would get the hit of actual delicious flavours that the curry was offering, but if i didn't… Well, do I need to say spicy one more time so everyone understands?

I don't want to say I'm a fussy eater, but Paul's meal was a non-spicy, nut free curry so I could have had that… But it was a coconut milk curry and while Paul loved it and scoffed it down with only offering me a bit out of politeness and then going back to his meal with super speed when I said no… I don't like coconut milk.

However, lets all take a moment to remember that Jade (that's me) has a few eating disabilities:  super bad reflux (which takes full force when eating spicy foods, anything too acidic, anything too fatty, too much onion/garlic (yes lets talk about the onion fritter I had already eaten)) and the ever present nut allergy (which sends me to hospital when eating… nuts).  It all hinders me "trying new things", and sometimes a bit of sickness is totally worth the reflux (the nuts aren't usually worth the hospital visit).  I know I know, excuses! Reasons to stay with the "safe" food!  I promise you all (even though I'm sure you don't mind what I eat) that I will TRY to try some more "adventurous" foods, because why not live a little. 

ANYWAY completely off track.  Overall, with drinks, entree and mains and using the Entertainment voucher (25% off) it came to about $45.  It was good, spicy, flavoursome, delicious, tender and there was a variety of options on the menu.   And to top it off, I really enjoyed the atmosphere, though I wouldn't go there with a big group for a birthday or anything because I'd want a bit more space.

Burger Theory

For any of those who have read through old posts, pretty much every time I get burger I write something clever about how I got a burger because as everyone knows I love burgers.  Well here’s one more.  This week was my ultimate date night – Burger Theory.

My sister Skye told me about it and I put it to the top of the list – the next week we were hunting down the Burger Theory van of happiness.  So for those of you that were like us and did not know what Burger Theory was about, it’s basically a van that travels around Adelaide, stopping in spots for a few hours selling awesome burgers.  They give you two options, classic cheeseburger type burger and one that is a little bit fancy (check out the technical menu here).  Throw in a couple more options like tomato sauce or truck sauce, and whether to get a coke (or coke zero, or water) and fries as well and you’ve got your menu.  It was about $15 for drink fries and burger.

I was a little skeptical, wondering whether this burger van was so awesome because it was an “underground” thing.  Like oh my god, you DON’T know about Burger Theory *instantly uncool* but then the burgers weren’t actually that great.  One way to find out!  But considering their Facebook page has close to 6000 likes, it had to be good, right?

Lucky for us it wasn’t a case of trekking all over town trying to find this van – on their Facebook and website they have a calendar of where they’ll be.  And double awesome, they started serving on the corner of Rundle Street and Frome Road at 6.30, nice early dinner date night, but enough time for me to wander around town before hand :)

Now we got there and I already knew I was going for burger number 1, and going all out with fries and coke (and truck sauce on the burger). We ordered, and I got my creep on and got a photo of the man taking our orders.  I wish I had gotten his name.  But he was pretty casual and not too thrown off getting his photo taken (after I told him what it was for).  

There was four people working (that I saw) and they seemed to all know their roles pretty well. I didn’t see any bumping or confusion or anything, just banging out burgers.

There was a window for ordering and a window for collecting.  

They also gave out those beeper things that go off when your order is ready so they don’t have to scream it out.  While we were waiting a couple of things happened.  First a couple of girls found Burger Theory… and literally squealed with excitement at finding the van. It was a loud yayayayayay kind of squeal and I thought surely something must have happened; surely these teenagers weren’t that excited about coming across a burger van.  I was wrong, they were excited and squealing for that exact reason (we know because they started telling the guy taking the orders how excited they were) and my hopes got even higher. The second was the spectacle of a man RUNNING back to the van with his beeper going off, waving it in the air like he had won a prize.  I don’t know how far away he gotten but he certainly sped back from there.  Considering we were waiting max 10 minutes, those two things were enough to keep me entertained.

By this stage the line was long, my stomach was growling and my hopes were high for the seemingly famous burgers this van produced.

So we got our food. Out of the truck. With our fries and cokes. Standing on Frome Road with nowhere to eat our meals without having to put something down.  I was that hungry I was considering sitting down just on the road near the truck, which really I don’t think would have been all that “out there” considering how many people were lined up to get their mouths around these burgers).  But then, Paul the genius was all, hey the car is just in that car park, lets go eat in there.  And we didn’t pay for our ticket so we could take our time.  We finally got to the car and that was the end of that burger.

The burger patty itself was, well, perfect in my eyes.  It wasn’t too big that you ran out of bun (so good patty – bun ratio is what I’m trying to say), but it was a good enough size that it wasn’t like a maccas or hj’s burger.  The truck sauce, the only way I can think to describe it is as maybe a mayonnaise with salt and pepper? I’m not even sure if that’s right, I was trying to put my finger on it the whole time I was eating it.  It actually really annoyed me.  But it tasted really really good.  They didn’t over do the sauce, but there was plenty of it.  And I was surprised how well cooked the fries were.  I was expecting some not properly cooked showground fries, but they delivered on that front too.

I appreciated the simplicity of it.  A burger with cheese, meat patty, sauce, lettuce and tomato (if you got burger 1 that is), too easy!  That’s what it should be!  I don’t always want bacon and egg and chutney and beetroot together with a super thick meat patty that is way too big to take a bite out of so I end up looking like an uncivilized slob no matter which way I try to eat it (but to be clear, sometimes I do want that, just not this night).

So it didn’t take long for us both to devour these delicious burgers that definitely met the hype.  I wasn’t even in a food coma at the end of it because everything was a perfect size to fill me up, but not that too much to send me over the edge into “oh my god I’m so full I hate myself” land.

Next time I come across that van I’ll squeal with excitement like those other girls.