Spice of Life, Harris Park

I've recently befriend (or inflicted myself upon) some new blogger friends - all of whom are expats in Australia. Two girls are from the USA and another hails from the UK. The two Americans have just landed in Oz after a stint in the UK...and they were ALL hankering after some decent Indian food reminiscent of the "good stuff" found in the UK. 

It just so happens that I live VERY VERY close to Sydney's Little India (aka Harris Park). A heady and mouthwatering aroma of exotic spices envelopes this suburb - you smell the delicious food long before your stomach gets anywhere near it. 

Wigram Street is where you'll find the majority of the restaurants in Harris Park, with a few up on Marion Street. There are Indian grocers, spice shops, video stores and sari shops aplenty (along with a few Arab delis, butchers and cake shops - a nod to the fact that we're only a few kilometers from Auburn - Sydney's Little Turkey I guess you'd call it).

The majority of the restaurants can be found in lovely little cottages - however tonight we have our sights set on Spice of Life - an enormous Indian restaurant (apparently the biggest in Australia no less)! It's been highly recommended to us by an Indian colleague of VegeTARAian's as being quite authentic and we have an excellent meal - delicious food, great service and loads of laughs.

As with all good Indian meals we start with a basket of lovely, crispy Pappadums that come served with a tangy yoghurt Raita.  It's Kingfisher beers all around (they go down WAY to easily I think) as well as our flat bread of choice - Roti bread for me, and Naan for most of the others.

Tara and I are sharing Vegetarian meals tonight and we start with a Mixed Vegetable Platter for 2 ($16.00).  I don't ever recall seeing a Vegetarian entree platter at an Indian restaurant before - so we're both pretty impressed.  The platter houses a selection of Samosa, Paneer Tandoori and Batata Vada (mashed seasoned potatoes mixed with spices and deep fried).  We both REALLY love the Paneer which is pan fried in a mix of spices, capsicum and onions.  If I could figure out the spice mix I think this would be pretty easy to whip up at home.

  

For mains Tara chose Baigan Achari ($15.00) - a beautiful beautiful roasted eggplant dish cooked with onion in a hot spicy sauce of traditional spices and garnished with coriander. This dish was wonderful - the eggplant SO smokey. Amazing.  Weather I'm eating Vegetarian or not I always find it hard to go past an Indian main that has Cottage Cheese in it - thus my choice for our mains is Malai Kofta ($15.00) -  cottage cheese and cashew nut dumplings simmered in saffron scented creamy sauce.  This was excellent - a nice balance of flavours and this dish wasn't too creamy at all.

The Boy - who was slumming it down the Vego end of the table - decided on a Non-Vegetarian Thali ($18.00). Thali plates are AMAZING - perfect for the indecisive person who wants to try loads of different things and they are WAY more filling than the individual little dishes make them out to be. The plate comes with a mix of  vegetable curries, non-veg curries, roti, green salad, mixed pickles, raita and pappadums. And, you even get dessert!!! All on ONE PLATE!!!

There was a meat-festival going on at the other end of the table - all too hard to photograph from my end of the table whilst scoffing and photographing my own food.  Check our SarahKates blog for a low-down on what the carnivores got up to that night.

After dinner we wandered across the road to Taj for some amazing Indian Sweets...a good night was had by all I think - judging by the amount of groaning and belly rubbing that went on after we'd finished dessert.

Spice of Life is at 116 Wigram Street Harris Park. Phone them on 9762 1033.