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Lifestyle Drink & Dine Tamil nitrate
Lifestyle Drink & Dine Tamil nitrate
| Tamil nitrate |
 Curry fans are thrilling to the tastes of Newtown’s superb-value diner, writes Nick Dent.I am staring at a whole blue swimmer crab that is buried in a quicksand of luscious brown curry, its legs reaching out of the bowl in a futile gesture for help, and trying to work out why it only costs $12. It’s a bit of a poser, because its sweet and juicy flesh blends sublimely with the sizzling, earthy curry. You wouldn’t blink to pay twice that amount for it somewhere ritzier – say, a place where the chairs are by Philippe Starck and the waiters give you the look of love once in a while. Maybe it’s because we’re in Newtown: still a haven of cheap eats for starving students, still crazy after all these years. But I have to say, nothing has captured my attention on King Street lately quite like Kammadhenu, except perhaps for that woman who walked by wearing a dress made out of ties. It’s a big purple room with slightly pervy Indian paintings on the walls, packed to the rafters with diners, even though it’s early on a Tuesday night. Kammadenhu’s specialty is anything Tamil – whether Sri Lankan, South Indian or Malaysian in provenance. Dr Love has spent so much time here of late I was starting to wonder if I should advertise for a new roomie. When I finally came along, however, with the doc and a couple of buddies, I could understand the attraction. A tallie of Kingfisher is only $8, and nothing goes better with a fiery feed than a cool bottle of beer. It certainly helps when I bite into my lamb roll entree ($1.50) – basically a deep fried, crumbed cigar containing tasty lamb curry. It burns the roof of my mouth, but it’s worth it. While the doc applies his surgical skills to that drowned crustacean, prying its crabby goodness from the shell with expert precision, I tuck into a crisp masala dosai ($7), a thin pancake rolled around curried potato with green chilli and red chilli sambal dipping sauces. Fab. We get down to business with goat and chicken curries ($10 each) distinguished by tender, succulent meats – they’re not trying to hide bad meat with heat – in good, hot, tasty curry. What rice can’t deal with we mop up with some excellent roti ($2 each). We order an eggplant salad ($10) in lip service to vegetables, but it turns out to be lip-smacking service: aubergine in yoghurt with cucumber and coriander shouldn’t taste this good. My dessert is milk hoppers ($2 each), a tempting bird’s nests of condensed milk, while Dr Love ordered a payasam ($3). Thick, white and gooey with beads of semolina, it’s not my favourite pudding in the world, but it allows us to crack a few sperm jokes. One must take one’s pleasures where one can. When we moved to get up, we fell back down, because we were royally stuffed. Then the bill came, and we all fell down again, this time in disbelief. A few more hyper-authentic, cheapy-cheap places like this one open up and I’ll seriously have to consider moving inner-westward. I know Dr Love would be up for it. Kammadhenu 171 King Street Newtown Tel: 9550 2611 kammadhenu.com.au
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