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)