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.