Henry's Kitchen at the Suva Bowling Club

Henry is a tall heavyset man with ridiculous hair, plying his artery clogging and arse expanding trade at the Suva Bowling Club, after spending many years doing the same at the Lawn Tennis Club.

Henry's speciality is the massive serve, and large rear ends and protruding stomachs of the clientèle indicate that he knows what his punters want, and that he serves it up to them by the plateful.

The menu is entirely composed of meals that are usually described by cliché ridden writers (like us) as "hearty". If by "hearty" we mean "likely to cause heart disease" then this is entirely accurate.

In fairness to Henry, the meals are not in themselves particularly unhealthy, one just expects that the effects of a Morgan Spurlock type experiment (one where every plate must be finished clean) could be quite dire.

This Wednesday menu is fairly typical and includes:

• Roast Pork with Dalo
• Whole Pan Fried Sabutu with Spicy Sauce - The "Shock and Awe" dish of the menu, a huge ugly bastard that fills your plate, packs your stomach, impresses your friends, and empties your wallet ($15)
• Fish and Chips - an old classic done well, always hot and fresh
• Various Chinese type meals: Beef Black Bean, Pork Chowmein, Chilli Chicken, Spicy Pork Fried Rice.

If you want something not on the menu, it usually pays to ask. If they have the ingredients and know how to do it, they will make it.

We went for the most popular item on the menu: Meaty Bones with Dalo and Cabbage, and decided to try something chinesey as well - the Chicken with Mushroom.

The venerable Sui is full of artery coating goodness, big hunks of meaty bones in a fatty broth, three slabs of heavy carbs, some cabbage just so that the colour green is represented, with chilli and lemon. Wash that down with some of the cheapest draught beer in town and it will make you happy that millions of years of evolution have given you a digestive system. It may also guarantee a very unproductive afternoon when you get back to office.

Minus point: There is no good reason to skimp on the lemon, a bigger slice (or maybe two slices) would be good. You can always ask for an extra slice, but I never remember and then it gets too hard to find the waitress again (especially if its busy). Just give more lemon dammit, not like it would cost them much.

The Chicken Mushroom was chosen as the representative of the pseudo-chinese part of the menu. The vegetables are plenty and fresh (except for the mushrooms and bamboo shoots which obviously come from a can), and the chicken is obviously a fine specimen of battery farmed frozen Gallus gallus domesticus.

Certainly tasty enough, and a suitably large serve but nothing special. A more serious objection is that they seem to have poured far too much of the brine from the bamboo shoot can into the pot, and this taste is overpowering and offputting.

These are what bones look like after they are done. They say Pirahnas can do a better job of stripping a cow to its bones, but I put it to you that their table manners are poorer, and good luck getting blog posts out of them afterwards.

If you come on a Saturday you get to see what that green bit out there in the sun is actually for. It's like billiards (targeting balls at other balls, copious beer drinking) but the table is bigger and they don't throw you out for getting on it.

They have parking, this is good. But no toothpicks, this is bad.

In Summary

Henry's Kitchen

Suva Bowling Club,
Cnr of Victoria Parade and Grahame St,
Suva

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sat: Lunch and Dinner

Spend:

$7 - $15 per person