Malabar: A trip to southern India

Nothing beats a warming, spicy curry in the depths of winter and with the cool temperatures of the last couple of weeks, curries have been high on the list of winter cravings. So we were more than happy to battle a freezing, windy Sunday night for a short trip to the south of India via Malabar restaurant in Darlinghurst.

Producing regional Indian cuisine from Malabar in the south of the Indian subcontinent, chef and owner Mohammed Sali and his team have been in the Victoria Street space for an impressive 11 years. Later this year, they're planning a move up the road to bigger premises - judging by the full house and continuous flow of takeaway orders, it's not a bad idea.

Prawn dosai from Malabar, Victoria Street, Darlinghurst

Despite the cold outside, we couldn't resist a couple of mango lassis that were sweet with a vividly-coloured mango addition to the yoghurt drink.

We had one of the restaurant's specialty dosai as a shared entrée, as many tables appeared to be doing, opting for the prawn filling in the thin, crisp crepe of fermented rice and lentil batter.

Inside of prawn dosai 

Served with a creamy, nutty sauce and a spiced curry-like sauce on the side, the dosai encased firm pieces of king prawn in a sweet and tangy sauce, full of spices, flavouring the accompanying tomato and capsicum. My first dosai experience and I do say, I'll be having more of these in future.

Chicken Dhansak

We shared two mains including the day's special of chicken Dhansak, cooked with red lentils, Kashmiri chilli and ginger, finished with strained yoghurt. A mild level of heat, there were surprisingly clean spice flavours in the tangy sauce, with the chilli ante increased with the addition of pickled chillies.

It was also my first experience of Indian style pickles which are made for mixing in with curries and other mains and rice in very small quantities per mouthful - definitely not for eating on their own.

Beef Kerala

The beef Kerala was more curry as I know it, with fresh coconut milk, ginger and potatoes in a mild sauce. The super-tender beef delighted in the creamy sauce, as did the steamed rice and naan bread we had with the mains.

Chilli cheese naan

While garlic naan is my usual order with Indian curries, the chilli cheese offering at Malabar got my interest this time.

Not particularly heavy-handed on the chilli, the cheese is all stretchy, gooey goodness to start but is less interesting when it no longer oozes. Garlic naan still reigns supreme in my books.

Mango kulfi

Three out of four dessert options are kulfi so we went with the odds. A frozen dairy dessert much like ice cream but more dense, we opted for the mango flavour which was the same vivid colour of our previous lassi and just as addictively sweet and creamy.

It was an utterly delightful, heart- and feet-warming dinner on a packed Sunday night with chef-owner Sali doing the rounds on the floor. A spontaneous curry dinner and short trip to south India has been the best remedy for winter so far.

In the festival mood

With Sydney Festival in full swing, I feel bit festive and a bit excited, especially since I'd gotten my desired tickets earlier on in the game and needn't play with the early morning Martin Place queues for Tix for Nix. And then there's all the free events in The Domain - which are always much fun and did I mention free? I've already seen a large majority of the cast of Packed to the Rafters partying along to Al Green at First Night and I'm simply busting with anticipation for Paul McDermott's operatic debut in Candide - much fun, indeed.

Following an inspiring and uplifting performance by the Manganiyar Seduction, the barbeque out the front of the Seymour Theatre, while still fragrant of charcoal and chorizos, was not going to suffice. I mean, after the theatrics of the lights and curtains, the touching expressions of hands and eyes, and the feeling of being treated like kings and queens somewhere else in the world; a sausage on a roll wasn't going to cut it - gourmet or not.

The passionate voices, beating drums and whine of instruments unknown were still lolling about my mind during the short journey to Newtown. It's perhaps no wonder that we eagerly agreed on Kammadhenu - undeterred by their proclaimation of "Sydney's best curries" on the front door and remembering recommendations about their roti.

Beef kothu roti from Kammadhenu,
King Street, Newtown

It's too bad we hungrily ordered without in depth-analysis of the menu, but in hindsight, it worked out. The first sight of roti on the menu and we were ordered - but rather the Sri Lankan kothu roti, which in no way resembles roti canai I've sampled in the past. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though - and as my dining partner pointed out, it was like a deconstructed super-roti featuring beef, shredded roti pieces, onion, coriander, chilli and numerous other vegetables; stir -fried and reconstructed into a mound of rather large proportion.

The 'medium' level of spicing was about the limits of chilli heat for me, but subdued rather nicely by the pieces of roti in the mix. In the end, the dish was a meal in itself and really looked like a chopped gathering of leftovers, but there's some irony in the way it all pulled together intriguingly and spicily.

Deep fried fish with chilli

I don't remember the name of the dish (fish p-something unpronounceable) but its golden fried facade evoked thoughts of fish fingers. Whether that's good or bad, it wasn't far off with the nearing dry fish fillet a little lacking in its chilli promise but nicely seasoned nonetheless.

Saag chicken

Sharing dishes in Asian cuisine is a given, although I sometimes feel some competition in ordering the better dish of the table. Not so much a case of dish envy, given everything is shared, but perhaps dish rivalry.

I ordered the saag chicken curry, expecting a distinctly green sauce of blended spinach. It arrives, instead, mostly an orangey brown with specks of green - which is unexpected let alone the heavy taste of cardamom. It's not too hot, but the hot temperature of the dish, combined with the chilli heat from the roti before tortures the tongue into ordering a few more bottles of water.

Rendang beef

The other main ordered was the rendang beef; a more expected fiery red hue. While the dish may look plain and unexcitable, this was a wow-dish from the first mouthful of sauce. Zingy and sweet with yielding cubes of beef and a flavour that speaks of hours and hours cooking and preparation, this was a magnetic dish where you go back for thirds and fourths, even when you're not sure your tongue is still attached/working or you're about to explode from satiety.

Garlic naan and butter naan

Along with basmati rice copious amounts of water, the chilli fight is well fought with puffy, fresh naan bread - in the garlic and butter versions here. Perfect for sopping up tasty sauces, but certainly scrummy enough on their own too. I like to think I'm reading into the personality of the naan or its chef when I see its blistery and burnt tandoor oven marks on the underside.

During the meal, we note that there's a decided lack of atmosphere in the restaurant; although admittedly, we'd just seen one of the most vibrant and exciting Rajasthani musical performances around, and its experience and memory were still playing in the mind. In fact, I think it still was days later when I'm still in the mood for all things spice, and even random Indian soft drinks I come across. Play on, Sydney Festival.

The golden tetrahedron

My cold fingers are crying out for buttery, soft cow hide to keep them safe and warm from this utterly inconsiderate cold snap. My winter skirts are pleading for slick black, yet fun and cheeky, hosiery to partner them on outings.

Sale or not, I must deny them both, having received a couple of friendly letters from the tax commissioner. I feel like I did when I was in the Golden Quadrangle in Milan, where every next step was another high-end designer store; another unaffordable material lust; temptation; being so close yet so very far.

So with my poor frozen fingers distracting me from purchases of the Golden Quadrangle nature, I turn my thoughts to a more affordable, satisfying golden tetrahedron. I find it difficult to resist samosas; whether for their snack-friendly pastry packaging, likeness to dumplings or that heady mix of vegetables and spices.

Samosas from Jaipur Sweets, Elizabeth Street, Sydney

I get my samosa fix at Jaipur Sweets and am always amazed by the array of completely foreign sweets and desserts, as well as savoury dishes like thali, which I'm yet to sample. It's the cheap and cheerful "polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex" that keep me coming back.

Samosas

The bubbly and blistered deep-fried flour pastry is remarkably thin for such a large package and definitely a key and favourite samosa component for me. Ignoring the oil slicks, I like to start by breaking off the uppermost tip and then munching my way to the base.

Spice-packed samosa filling

Filled with an incredibly spicy filling of potatoes, peas, carrot, cashews, cumin seeds, coriander seeds and other tongue tinglers, these samosas come with a stickily sweet (tamarind?) sauce that I drizzle all over. The sauce does help in tempering the spice heat, momentarily.

My ritual consumption of these samosa usually results in my reenactment of the wolf in a certain triple small pork serve of a fairy tale. No, I'm not gobbling bacon but rather huffing and puffing away, grinning despite the intense heat on my palate.

There's some nice symmetry after eating one of these: I can't feel my tongue, nor can I feel my glove-less frozen fingers.

Fulfilling festivals

Sunshine, markets, live music, food and booze, like-minded revellers, adorable pooches, eye candy - I'm a happy camper. The Surry Hills Festival has come and gone again and rather than feeling a tad old for the number of festivals attended, I can't hide the smile on my face as the weather holds up for one of my favourite annual outdoor community events.

Early crowd at Surry Hills Festival, Prince Alfred Park

Despite the touch of autumn chill and threatening greyness, Prince Alfred Park is packed with other happy campers and the pet dogs of Surry Hills ready for the day. A gold coin donation is exchanged for entry and a government-sponsored sticker questioning my intentions of binge drinking.

This dog obviously paid its gold coin donation

I put on my sunnies, wonder if government spies were stalking me the night before and immediately seek coffee. The bars were noticeably quiet early on with queues swelling and snaking later in the afternoon. Coffee, however, is another story - a notable lack of a dedicated coffee vendor (for Surry Hills - crazy, I know!) meant a 10 minute wait with many others for a watery, bland, shameful excuse of a cappuccino. And the skim milk is not to blame.

Sub-standard caffeine fix in hand made perusal of market stalls a little more difficult than usual, though appropriately so for one under a shopping ban. The absence of food, drink or other distraction in hand leads to the picking up of pretty, usually expensive items and the subsequent, sometimes impulsive, purchase of said items. But it's so pretty and I love it.

And I did come across an adorable little stall with the quirky, kitsch style pendants that I adore, and in this case, almost want to eat. Spot the following in the picture below: prawn, California sushi roll, butter cookie, Granny Smith apple slice, fish head stew, chocolate soft serve cone, red bean dessert, sea urchin roe genkan sushi, jam cookie, baby bok choy, fruit salad and ice cream, heart-shaped chocolates, chicken mid-wing, dumplings in soup, slice of chocolate cake.

Necklace/pendant market stall

There's no shortage of food at this stall but of the edible variety, a stall-lined avenue of festival food delights including the ubiquitous Turkish gozleme, corn on the cob, chorizo rolls, lemonade stand, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and cuisine of the Indian, Thai, Italian, Maltese, Hare Krishna, Cuban and many other varieties.

Chicken and mushroom pastizzi

A pastizzi from the Maltese stall seems a roaming-suitable snack and with four filling varieties advertised I would, of course, pick the unavailable one. The chicken and mushroom option ends up being the choice, however the chewy rather than crisp and crunchy pastry makes me regret not waiting a few more minutes for the spinach and cheese variety. It's good to try something different anyway, and the filling of minced chicken and mushroom slices is new to me for pastizzis and quite tasty.

And with snack, roam I do - to lust-worth goat's leather bags and satchels, picturesque prints and photo frames, funky modern dresses of vintage fabrics, painfully pretty headwear, and the always busy and giggle-inducing Happy High Herbs stall. A lot of this roaming was conducted to a live soundtrack - at the Lilypad stage a manic, almost maniacal vocal and physical performance; a chilled roots-y vibe at the Red stage; and more the rocker variety at the main Green stage.

Some nutters performing at the Lilypad stage

It's not long before the lunch stomach grumbles commence - by now it is late afternoon but the body has admittedly skipped the part of day known as morning. The body was also giving rather strong messages to stay away from the bar. Maybe those government stickers do work. The eyes and brain work together in scanning the range on offer - vegie nuggets from the Hare Krishna guys, seafood paella, woodfired calzones, Himalayan wraps, fish and chips - before finally settling on a duo of Indian curries.

Eggplant & potato curry and butter chicken on basmati rice

The meal is disappointingly lukewarm, not helped by the chilly breeze. It is satisfyingly filling nonetheless with tender chunks of chicken thigh in the vividly-hued sauce tempering the mild fire of the vegetable curry.

Bellies full - on this occasion with not a drop of beer - and kicking back in the sun to live music and friendly wandering people and dogs alike is my quintessential festival routine. If only every day were a festival.

Eating up a sweat

I like to think that I'm fairly open-minded when it comes to food. I'm generally open to giving things a try, even if it sounds a little quirky (offal aside). I love trying new cuisines and restaurants which might explain why I sometimes struggle to find restaurants to go to with my family. Mum is a little sensitive in her eating habits, for reasons of health and preference. Dad is a creature of habit, a stubborn one at that. My favourite places to go to with friends are mostly not to parents' liking so picking a restaurant is normally a very drawn out process, often ending with takeaway from local Asian eateries.

On this particular outing (after a night of procrastination) I took the bold step of telling the family where we would be going - within a certain mandate of " no steak or seafood restaurants". We headed to Glebe for Darbar which I had been meaning to try after walking and/or driving past many a time. Early-ish on a Thursday night the restaurant had two tables of two, but hosted a constant stream throughout the evening.

The menu is extensive with banquet options, veg and non veg entrees, three mains sections, rice, sides, breads and desserts - and for someone with decision-making deficiencies and limited experience with Indian cuisine, it can be quite daunting. Starting with the easy stuff, I have a mango lassi which I know will come in handy when the spice gets a little too much for the tastebuds.

Mango lassi

The lassi is divine - sweet with the distinct taste of thick, creamy yoghurt sprinkled with some pistachio and with little bits of ginger throughout. It's also a generous serve that gets me all the way through to dessert and in fact becomes my dessert. Papadums with a minty yoghurt sauce also arrive at the table for our nibbling.

Papadums

After a few minutes of independent contemplation, ordering becomes a group task. We throw around poorly pronounced Indian words, speculate about the size of dishes and our appetites, ooh-and-aah over new exotic dishes and reminisce about dishes at that restaurant up the coast that we all went to 12 years ago. My last experience at an Indian eatery with friends reminded me that mains can be deceptively large; that is, they look small but after entrees and copious amounts of carbohydrates (breads and rice) and water, can be filling. As such we share the non-veg mix platter as an entree, promising tasty bits of meat to satisfy any steak fiend.

Non-veg mix platter: lamb cutlets, khass sheek kebab and chicken malai tikka

The platter comes out surprisingly monotone: it all looks like tandoori. The rocket salad on the side is another surprise but a welcome one for this rocket addict. The lamb cutlets are tender and juicy - their French-trimmed bones wrapped in a foil 'handle'. The kebabs are a delightful mince of lamb with coriander accents, the texture firmer than an average sausage and oh-so flavoursome, finished in the tandoor oven explaining its colour appearance. And the chicken, with a squeeze of lemon, is as good as expected.

With many Western cuisine restaurants I tend to favour entree dishes over mains. They seem more exciting, more intricate and detailed with flavours. This isn't the case tonight as I'm looking forward to the curries and sauces, which themselves will be a myriad of flavours and ingredients. On the sidelines and ready to go we have saffron basmati rice, garlic naan and tandoori roti.

Tandoori roti (left) and garlic naan (right)

The roti is crispier than the naan, totally different to the Malaysian style roti that's even thinner and fluffy and chewy. The naan is fresh and soft with a liberal sprinkling of chopped garlic - not sure mints or gum will cover this, but I'm with the family so that's fine by all of us. For mains we've elected a lamb dish, a chicken, a fish and a vegie. We tried to go for variety and I think we achieved that, with a range of spicy, sweet, nutty and sour flavours coming through in each of the dishes.

Lamb vindaloo

Starting with Dad's request: the lamb vindaloo. The menu tells me that the word vindaloo comes from Portugese, meaning vinegar and garlic. I can taste the garlic, not so much the vinegar, and an excess of salt. The taste is mild to start, with the spice kick coming in subsequent tastes. There are variously-sized chunks of lamb (or is it beef?) that are not chewy, but not a soft tender texture either. Not my favourite dish, which Dad doesn't have a problem with.

Nellore fish curry

My pick is the fish curry, as it's not something I'd commonly have at home or even contemplate making. Darbar's version comes with "seasonal fish" though we're not told what it is. It's white, boneless and the fillets were quite thick, so your guess is as good as mine. This sauce is sweet with a sour twinge, most likely from the tamarind. Great to dip roti and naan, and packing just the right amount of heat, although Mum found this dish to be the spiciest.

Chicken chukka

Next main is brother's pick of the chicken chukka which is served dry, well, relatively dry. At this point the coriander/tomato garnish is looking a bit unoriginal but it's not all about that, I guess. The chicken pieces are moist and the sauce tasty - too many spice flavours to even mention but a definite winner on the table.

Gutti vankai (stuffed eggplant)

Last but not least is the vegetarian dish, holding its own up against bird, mammal and fish. Yes, more greenery and tomato garnish but a totally different look and taste to the other dishes. The colour initially gives an indication of the taste - it's nutty. The menu tells me cashew, peanut, sesame and coconut. It's almost a little overpoweringly nutty, with the eggplant unable to break through at all. I personally love the natural subtle flavour of eggplant so am a little overwhelmed by the nuttiness, although my brother calls it an "interesting" sauce.

I absolutely love the first tastes of each dish. After about the fifth or sixth mouthful the tongue starts to signal for help. It tingles a little, cheeks are going a bit pink and little droplets of sweat are forming on noses all round. Roti and naan are dipped into sauces in the hope that carbs can lessen the heat. Water glasses are refilled and I even sip the lassi for limited relief. Breaks from eating are being taken for heads and tongues to cool, though this doesn't really work.

Towards the end some on the table look like they've been outdoors in the light rain - a head somewhat drenched in water. My uncontrollable laughter at this point is not helping either. We look like we've just had a workout, what with the huffing and puffing, fanning and sweaty looks. It's all good fun, and mostly satisfactory food as well. Nothing a quick visit to the restroom won't fix.