~ Curious Charlie ~

Local Eats - Curry Camp in Camberwell @ Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Thursday 12th August

In our small town of ~~Hamelin~~ Camberwell, which composes of either cheap, chain or expensive restaurants there are a few lunch spots we'd like to try out. The first is Curry Camp, a ma and pa Indian restaurant, small but cozy and surprisingly never full, though it is a small town.

Tables for two and four, they do take group bookings too.

On Thurdays & Fridays they're open for lunch, just those days. For $7.50 you can get selected curries (I'm yet to clarify which, but it doesn't include paneer) with rice and naan. Small means that you get one rectangular container of curry and rice, larger ($10) means a container of curry on its own and then rice. Double the curry I'd say for takeaway. If you want to dine in it's $1 more, though as we live within walking distance, we got take-away.

This is what the larger portion looks like, but here I've gone BYO rice as I bought takeaway. There's a large piece of naan cut into four slices. The butter chicken was 1.5 meals, for dinner that night with leftover rice and sauce for tomorrow's lunch. Just need to add an egg for protein.

Bio guy says butter chicken is the spaghetti of Indian food (reference to that one time we went to an African eatery, and they had all African food plus spaghetti for Fred) but it's delicious! Not too sweet or anything, I had it mild but you can choose your heat.

Friday 2nd September

Lunch at Curry Camp $8.50 (-1 for TA) was quite good, we had the Chicken Madras - boneless chicken cooked in south Indian style with coconut and curry leaves, which was well balanced in flavour with curry leaves and an overall curry taste with a hint of coconut milk.

The second most popular dish on the menu, with the first being butter chicken. I prefer the butter chicken as it's sweeter and to me a classic that I love.

Mango Lassi $4

The mango lassi was quite sweet and in between the thick version and watery, it was milky. I liked it but prefer a thicker consistency though not yoghurt thick, also it was a bit sweet for me.

Freshly baked naan, served warm is one of life's simply pleasures. Serve hot/warm.

Dinner on the way to class, Dal Makhani - black lentil and red kidney beans ($7.50 with rice and naan). There was green chili so it was a bit hot for me, but other than that it was fairly average, though fortunately still a good consistency with well balanced herbs & spices.

$20 for two meals and a drink is pretty good! We asked for the $7.50 lunch deal (note you need to do this if you want that special price), had it eat in $1+, plus another $7.50 deal take-away (lentils pictured above) and the mango lassi.

Next time... between our visits and the time this post is published I have moved houses, but not to fear our separation isn't far, just two stops. Plus bio guy is still at the boarding house, so we can still get takeaway dinners!

With warm lighting though not dim it's a good spot for dinner, though their lunch deal is irresistible still. But as jas works 9-6pm we always do dinner rather than lunch.

Tuesday 20th September

Back to main street for dinner, this is that visit I need to complete our review, after four visits I'm ready! Three lunch visits, two takeaways and now dinner for two. The chef recognizes me.

The Italians have bread baskets, the Chinese, prawn crackers and the Indians, papadrums dipped with raita and a mango chutney (chutney varies depending on where you go).

Whenever we're not sure what to get the banquet/set menu idea is always a great way to try a bit of everything. And often you need a minimal of two people (found that out the hard way last time). And so we selected Banquet A which was $22 per person. A three course shared menu.

Papadrums w Raita & Chutney
Entree - Samosa & Chicken Tikka
Main - Vegetable Korma & Butter Chicken w rice & naan
Dessert - Gulab Jamun

We started with a samosa each, deep fried parcels of puff pastry that held spiced potatoes and peas within. It was spicy! But just that perfect amount and was offset by the cool refreshing raita (spiced yoghurt with cucumber & carrot, completely smooth).

Chicken Tikka - Boneless chicken pieces marinated in yoghurt and spices, cooked in a clay oven. Is this orange or red? It's not me and the saturation levels. It was very brightly coloured! Though tasted just fine, kept moist from the marinade in the clay oven.

Vegetable Korma & Butter Chicken served with Rice & Naan

Butter Chicken - Boneless chicken cooked with spices in a tomato based butter sauce. Well balanced and mild, we love the butter chicken and have had it a few times. Mild as always, jas agreed that it was one of the best ones we've had, though he prefers it hotter, Red Pepper hot.

Vegetable Korma - Seasoned vegetables cooed in a rich creamy & nutty sauce. There was green beans, carrot matchsticks and cauliflower. I suppose this could count as our salad XD The sauce was indeed creamy and beautiful, and complimented the butter chicken with similiar flavours.

Our mains were served with rice & naan as pictured.
At $2 a serve, Curry Camp has the cheapest naan we've ever had.

Gulab Jamun

It's not often that we have Indian dessert that isn't pista kulfir (pistichio x condense milk ice cream) though tonight we were treated to something new. It's small and looks like a donut ball sitting in syrup. Small but mighty, a cake ball that has soaked up the syrup, sweet but not too sweet. Familiar spices and flavours, which we couldn't place, till the waitress said the main ingredient was milk. Ahh yes! It reminded us of that amazing three milks cake we had at Los Amates (Mexican) the other year! Delicious, you could eat two though after the entree and mains it was the perfect sweet conclusion.

Great service, warm and friendly as always. We don't know why we were the only two diners who ate in tonight, other than it's a Tuesday in a small town (we got there at 7.30pm), the waitress said they do a lot of takeaway delivery orders though, through Menulog, Foodora & UberEats. Living three blocks away we prefer old fashioned phone orders, it's much quicker and ready within 15 minutes.

Tip - You can get a similar set menu, minus the papadrums and dessert for a $30 takeaway (order via phone, not menulog or foodora). We paid $22pp ($12 more) for papadrums, dessert and the eat in experience. As neither of us have our own place we enjoy eating in. Also you'll be supporting a local non-franchise family business, which we always encourage.

When's Lunch? Thu/Fri 12.30-2.30pm. Kitchen closes at 2.30pm.

In one line: Cheap local gem to be uncovered.

Card Min. $15.