Jewel of Asia

Yet another food court find: this time from 'The Boulevard'. Jewel of Asia stands out for large serves ... good food and lashings of it.

My favourite is Steak and Dalo (with an optional fried egg on top). $7.50 will buy you enough dalo to feed a small family and slabs and slabs of tender, well marinated meat (picture below). A bit of salad on the side rounds out this substantial, and very tasty meal.

A warning: it takes real effort to finish. I attempted this item several times before I figured out how to build up the appetite to get all the way through. And if you can come at a full dinner after having this for lunch, you either work in construction, or have a weight problem.

Other good value for money items are roast chicken with dalo, the chicken and cashew, and the chicken chowmein (below). All the meat dishes come with a lovely gravy that has just the right amount of chilli in it.

Eating in is recommended: you'll need the walk back to the office afterwards, but they do takeaways as well.

In Summary

Jewel of Asia

Foodcourt 2, FNPF Plaza, Ellery St

Opening Hours:

8am - 5pm, Monday to Saturday

Spend:

$4 - $8 per person

Verdict:

Thumbs-up

Hot & Spicy Kitchen

Food courts are generally depressing places to eat, but Hot & Spicy Kitchen makes the Dolphin's Food Court worth visiting. I often wonder why they are stuck in the food court: they deserve a restaurant of their own.

If you're in a rush, or the sort of person that likes--God forbid--to order pre-cooked food from the warmer, then go elsewhere. This little Chinese food outlet comes into its own when you order from the menu ... and it has a menu that rivals most of the established restaurants in town for variety.

Soups start at $3.50 a serve (a good sized serve too). Besides the usual Chicken & Sweet Corn Soup, they have several others, including my favourite flu medication: Szechuan Hot & Sour Chicken Soup. They also make a very decent Combination Short Soup (and the usual variations on the theme).

The rest of the menu is divided roughly into:

• Chicken
• Beef
• Pork
• Vegetarian/Tofu

with separate sections for the Fu-Yung (omelettes) and Fried Rice. Each section is extensive and goes well beyond the usual chowmein and chopsuey options. There is also a board with seasonal or special items.

I'm a fan of the Szechuan Chicken and Ma-po Tofu (chicken or pork). The Lemon Chicken is also worth a try. Something called "Chicken, Mushroom, Veg" on the menu (pictured above) is probably my pick for the healthiest lunch in town. If you're absolutely rolling in cash and have a yearning for seafood, the Chilli Prawn Inferno lives up to it's billing.

I've always been impressed by the size of Hot & Spicy serves. Your order gets a takeaway container to itself and the rice gets a separate little bag. This accomplishes two things: it keeps food with a good sauce/gravy from soaking into the rice and becoming a sticky mess, and, it means you get to apportion the starch as you see fit.

Hot & Spicy is the only Chinese take-away place in Suva that does not have a 'half-serve', however, they more than make up for this by honouring special cooking requests: an acquaintance who is allergic to pork regularly orders combination fried rice--without the pork (pictured below); and they will happily vary the spiciness of dishes if you ask.

Dolphin's is a crowded place at lunch time so it's worth your while to pick up a menu from them next time you swing past, and keep it on your desk. They'll accept phone orders, which means you can call your choice in ahead and avoid the lines and the wait.

Hot & Spicy stays open 'til 9pm, so it's a favourite when I'm late leaving the office and don't feel like cooking.

You can either eat in the food court, or ask for take-way.

In Summary

Hot & Spicy Kitchen

Dolphin's Foodcourt, FNPF Place, Loftus St

Opening Hours:

8am - 9pm, 7 days a week

Spend:

$3.50 - $14 per person

Verdict:

Thumbs-up

Nando's

Nando's is all about chicken, lots of chicken, and all of it flame-grilled. There is a real danger that the word 'chicken' may lull you to sleep by sheer force of repetition by the time you finish reading the menu.

Nando's is comparatively expensive: not the sort of place that you want to be eating at regularly on your average lunch budget, but still, it is good for a change of pace.

Here are my finds:

• Chicken Breast in Pita - good combo of spicy chicken with a salad, nicely packaged in a little pita bread pocket that handles very well on the move.

• Grilled chicken Wrap - Chicken, salad and some sort of nice condiment, wrapped up and very portable for lunch on the run.

• Grilled chicken livers - excellent, always excellent; particularly excellent with the hottest basting. (not pictured)

• Corn (side-dish) - this stuff is probably genetically engineered to the hilt, but it is the sweetest, softest, juiciest corn on the cob available anywhere in Suva. Basted with a sauce of your choice (I like 'Lemon & Herb' or the 'Mild' Peri-peri) and then flame-grilled.
  

The other usual suspects like burgers, chips, and various degrees of whole-grilled chicken are available as well, all basted in the 'secret' sauce ... which I think consists mainly of bird's-eye chilli and a tangy vinegar base - good stuff!

Nando's has two locations in Suva, both with identical menus. Both have shockingly bad parking arrangements, so you're best sticking to the one closest to you and walking. The eat-in and takeaway crowds are both accommodated, but eating-in gives you a slightly wider range from the menu, and they're 'licensed'.

I hadn't really given much thought to takeaway wrappings/packaging until Nando's came along. Their packaging has actually been designed by people that eat take-out food: properly sized, grease-proof bags you can eat out of without descending to the level of a kindergarten picnic.

In Summary

Nando's

Regal Lane, or

Laucala Bay Rd

Opening Hours:

Lunch & Dinner, 7 days a week

Spend:

$7 - $15 per person

Verdict:

Thumbs-up

Joji's AKA Hole-in-the-wall

Joji's was once a cocky young upstart, but now is a grand old man of the of the Suva lunch scene. It is insanely popular amongst the office crowd and students.

Without an official name for most of its history but called amongst other things "Civic centre", "Jackie Chan", "Hole-in-the-wall", Joji's has finally made it official by adopting their most popular moniker. Its now proudly displayed on top of their new menu board.

While the new menu board must of cost the proprietors a bit, it was almost certainly a complete waste of money. I have never seen anyone look at it. Ever. In taking the snapshot I am now believed to be the first non-Mormon to actually read a single word on the menuboard in the 21st Century.

The food is a series of greasy stir fries, your meal is ordered by selecting from the following parameters:

• Meat: Chicken, Beef, Pork, Red (Char Siu) Pork, Fish, Vegetarian, Combination (Chicken, Beef, Red Pork)
  
• Style: Chop Suey, Fried, Fried Rice, Black Bean, Long Soup, Chilli, Oyster Sauce, Omlette, Cashew Nut, Curry
  
• Carb: Rice, Noodles, Cassava
• Size: Half serve or full serve
  

Thus a typical order is Chicken Chop Suey with Rice (Chicken fried up with chinese cabbage, onions, and frozen mixed vegetables on hot rice) or Fried Beef with Noodles (Beef stir fried with onions and mixed veg on noodles). The main difference between Chop Suey and "Fried" seems to be that fried has no cabbage and a bit more meat, and the only difference between "Fried" and "Chilli" is that chilli has, well, chilli in it. And so on and so forth with "Black Bean" and "Oyster Sauce".

Joji's main gimmick is the open kitchen thing. You order something and the guy cooks it. Thus the food is hot and fresh and you know the guy isn't throwing rats and/or meat dust into your food.

However they cheat a bit, and some of the more popular orders are cooked ahead for the lunch rush so they can be dished out faster. These are usually the chicken chop suey, the red pork chop suey, the combination chop suey, and the fried chicken. The smart thing to do is to wait to see whats just been cooked and order that, your food will be fast and hot. Avoid anything that you didn't see it come out of the wok.

I don't recommend anything in particular, but I can point out the configurations that I don't like:

• Meat: Beef (tough and tasteless), Fish (25% of being dodgy smelling)
• Styles:
  • Fried, Oyster Sauce, Black Bean, Chilli - we all need to be good children and eat our greens
  • Curry and Cashew nut - never seen anyone order it, so it must be crap
  • long soup - soup needs to boil for a while, and they are not using pre-made stock, just water, so what you get is a watery mess
• Size: Full (its just to much for me to eat)

There is a small eat-in area but most choose to take away. Your takeaway gets packed in your garden variety polyurethane packaging, usually to be consumed at office or seawall (an extra $0.10 for a plastic spoon).

I particularly recommend the food before and after a night of drinking (alchohol or kava). It has the right amount of grease to coat your stomach, and sufficiently heavy to give that base that you need. These properties are also very useful on the day after this sort of debauchery.

In Summary

Joji's

Civic Centre, Suva

Opening Hours:

Buggered if I know, but alway open for lunch on Mondays through Saturdays. Not sure about public holidays.

Spend

$4 - $6 per person

Verdict

Thumbs-up (don't eat it too often though, can get tiresome)

Cakaudrove Fish & Chips

Re-opened after some time-out; new management, new name... Despite inheriting the location and reputation, the new management are doing things differently, so we've given them a fresh review. This review will remain here, for old-times sake.

Cakaudrove Fish has been supplying good seafood to the denizens of Suva for many years, so it makes sense to me that they would expand their little empire to include fish & chips. And they do it right!

For a start you can pick your fish: raw fillets on display in the ice box, and then get both the fish and the chips cooked up for you right then and there. Gone are the days of lining up at the local chippy and hoping the contents of the warmer were actually cooked today.

The fish options range in price from $6.50 per serving for the nondescript stuff, to $9.50 for top-of-the-line cuts. I usually settle on something from the $7.50 pile - wahoo is nice. Whilst they have some nice cuts in the upper price ranges, I'm not sure that deep-frying does the more expensive fish justice - at the end of the day fish & chips will still be fish & chips.


Your money will get you a very generous serve of fish and a rather large amount of chips: I usually have difficulty finishing the chips before they reach the too-cold-to-eat point. Sharing one serve between two people often works out well.

They can also whip up prawn fritters, seafood sticks, mussels, and potato scallops ... depending on what's available on the day.

The whole deal is served up in a nice cardboard tray with a good-sized lemon wedge and a little plastic container of tomato sauce. Tartar sauce is also available for a bit extra.

The usual range of soft drinks is available in-store.

My only real gripe is that the amount of tomato sauce supplied struggles to provide adequate coverage for the chips. If they got a little more generous with that, and perhaps used seasoned salt on the chips, I would happily give them 10 out of 10.

The shop itself is a dinghy building behind Kunda Singh's Supermarket. But don't let the exterior put you off.

You are however, going to want to take your meal somewhere else to eat it. There is very little in the way of eat-in furniture, and what there is, is not attractive. Getting your meal from the shop to your chosen eating spot before it cools down too much is the least of your worries.

In Summary

Cakaudrove Fish & Chips

11 Bureta St, Samabula

Opening Hours:

8:30am - 6pm Monday to Thursday, 8:30am - 6:30pm on Friday, 7am - 6:30pm on Saturday, 8am - 1:30pm on Sunday

Spend

$6 - $10 per person

Verdict

Thumbs-up

Kahawa @ Ra Marama House

Kahawa's Ra Marama House shop has closed ... the sandwhiches are still available, you're just going to have to go to Suva Central to get them now.

The Kahawa name is shared by two coffee houses in Suva. Kahawa @ Ra Marama House probably has the nicest atmosphere of any of the various coffee houses of Suva. It truly is a nice place to sit and wind down. Free wireless internet is just the icing on the cake.

One thing Kahawa excells at is sandwiches. We're talking about rolls here: big rolls, about a foot long, and very well filled too. I also love the fact that you can almost always get a wholemeal roll. This makes them major heros in my books, but it gets better!

This is the only place in Suva where a half roll is half the price of a full roll. Half the price for half the product! Even though I never buy a half roll, but this really warms the cockles of my heart.

My favourite is the Chicken Salad roll, $5.80 for the full sandwich, $2.90 for the genuine half-roll, dainty-eater version.


Tuna Salad, Steak & Cheese, Italian Meatballs, and Chicken & Bacon round out the sandwich options. At just less than $8, the Steak and Cheese is the most expensive of the lot, but is still very good value for money and tummy.

The sandwich can be accompanied by the usual dose of caffeine, or with fresh fruit juice; or on hot days, an iced-drink.

All orders can be eaten at the scene or dragged back to the office.

Kahawa also offers the usual range of coffee house mini-savouries and sweets, should you not feel like a sandwich. I have not had any luck with their pies: puff pastry has never given me joy, and I'm sure it's harmful to the ozone layer.

In Summary

Kahawa @ Ra Marama House

Ground Floor, Ra Marama House, 91 Gordon St

Opening Hours

8am - 7pm weekdays

Spend

$3 - $8 per person

Verdict

Thumbs-up

Treetops

Treetops has closed, the apparent victim of capitalism. They have been replaced at their lovely location by Barristas, who shall be the subject of a review at some later time. In the mean time, take your desire for focaccia downtown.

Treetops is a small concern, hidden away in the heart of the University of the South Pacific Laucala Bay campus. Despite being right next door to the student dining hall, it has manages to remain the sort of place you can have a leisurely lunch.


This little restaurant is run by the USP Catering Services department, but is open to the public. The interior is cramped and somewhat dingy, but the balcony provides a very pleasant lunching environment, and on fine days one can make use of 4 out-door tables.

My main interest in Treetops is their grilled Focaccia sandwiches. These are offered with a pick-your-own-fillings approach. The Lunch In Suva team are pleased to report (after a bit of experimenting) that the combination of cheese, tomatoes, gherkins, sliced black olives and onion makes an excellent vegetarian focaccia. At $5.50 this makes a good-sized lunch.


The same focaccia bread is also on offer as a variety of mini-pizzas with pre-ordained toppings.

With the exception of the grilled vegetable platter, I am unable to recommend anything from the grill. Actually come to think of it, I can recommend that you stay as far away from it as possible.

Treetops offers one of the few salad bars in Suva. Sadly it is an annoying affair. The thrill of getting cheap ($2.50) salad soon wears off when the salad bowls are no bigger than those little space-savers airlines prefer, and the serving implements never seem suited to the various bits of greenery they are intended to transfer. I have dropped as much salad on the floor as I have ever managed to fit into those bowls.

The usual range of soft drinks, the odd fruit juice, and a very average espresso menu round out your meal options.

In Summary:

Treetops

USP, Laucala Bay Campus

Opening hours

10am - 5pm Monday to Friday

Spend

$5 - $7 per person

Verdict

A big thumbs-up for anything with focaccia bread. Thumbs-down to the grill.

Palm Court - Sandwich Bar

The menu at palm court is fairly wide ranging, but today we'll be focusing only on the sandwich bar. This is on the counter on the left as you enter from Victoria Parade.

There are typically three types of bread available: sliced white, sliced wholemeal, and rolls (which can either be white or wholemeal depending on what side of the bed the purchasing guy woke up on). My favourite is the wholemeal roll, but there is usually only around a 25% chance of this being available.

Once you've selected your bread its now on the to the fillings.

My two favourites are:

• cheese and salad with beetroot and pickle - a nasty sour thing that makes you happy
• smoked walu and salad with pickle - a happy salty thing that makes you nasty
  

There are many other fillings and you obviously can customise your sandwich with various combinations.

Your sandwich gets wrapped in the tightest cling wrap known to man. It will take three times as long to unwrap as to eat.

Turn up early, by 1315 the place fills up with yuppie scum who eat up all the wholemeal rolls, and breathe too much oxygen. In fact get your sandwich and go back to your office, classroom, or the the park across the road.

In Summary:

Palm Court

Victoria Parade, Suva

Opening hours

?am - ?pm Monday to Saturday

Spend

$3 - $10 per person

Verdict

Thumbs-up (for the sandwiches, thumbs down for the yuppie scum patrons)

Sweet-T-Pie Coffee Café

This Nasese eatery has closed ... well, it's been closed and sold and is currently under renovation by it's new owners. We will doubtless see further action at this location (it's too close to the new FIRCA hq to go to waste), but in the mean time, take yourself to the new Cakes 2000 digs on Butt St.

Cakes 2000 has had more locations and incarnations than I care to remember. Their latest incarnation in Nasese takes the form of a combined cake-shop and café-style eatery, alternately branded Cakes2000 and Sweet-T-Pie Café.

Their lunch menu consist mainly of:

• A BBQ/Grill section

  The grill has never made me happy ... steak not tender enough, chicken breasts not quite cooked ... or maybe I've just been on all the wrong days.

• All-Day Breakfasts

  A range of protein-rich, 'get-me-started' meals from $6.50 - $11. These have never let me down. The omelettes in particular are always good. Absolutely recommended.

  

• Miscellany at the counter

  A very boring selection of sandwiches, a couple of very heavy stuffed-croissants, a couple of salads, and quite possibly the best fresh fruit-salad in Suva. If you're lucky, you might visit when chocolate éclairs are available, otherwise there will be a small selection of deserts and cakes.

Drinks are a little limited. There is a small selection of fresh fruit juice & smoothies, and a limited espresso stand. A request for anything beyond that will get you a recommendation to visit the soft-drink fridge in the corner shop next door.

I am unable to recommend eating-in unless it is pouring rain, or you turn up very early in the morning to partake of the breakfast menu. The only tables available are outdoors, and under a heavy canvas awning, which does a wonderful pressure-cooker impression if the sun is anywhere in sight. This recommendation may change ... there seems to be work on a new premises on Butt St in the heart of Suva, which promises a large indoor eating area.

Update by kania tiko on 19th April: While the omelettes in general are good, the notable exception are the ones with cheese in them - they use some nasty processed kraft-like "cheese food" substance - prompting me to ask "what's wrong with good old Rewa Cheddar?" In their defence, Picky Eater swears he got the good stuff when last he ate there.

In Summary:

Sweet-T-Pie Coffee Cafe (aka Cakes 2000)

Ratu Sukuna Rd, Nasese

Opening hours

7am - 6pm Monday to Friday, 7am - 3pm on Saturday, 8am - 2pm on Sunday

Spend

$5 - $10 per person

Verdict

A caveated thumbs-up, and thumbs down to "processed cheese foods" of all kinds