Dan's Fish & Chips

Whilst hardly Suva's first fish and chip shop, Dan's can probably take the credit for starting a renaissance of dedicated chippies in Suva.

Well-placed to take advantage of USP and the surrounding public sporting venues (Stadium, New Gym, Aquatic Centre, etc). This place has a steady stream of customers most of the time ... and is packed during sporting events.


This is not one of those 'pick-your-fish' places, there's one sort of fish, no one knows what it is but that's just fine. Dan's signature $5.50 Fish and chips has 3 or 4 pieces of crisply battered fish, a lemon wedge and as many chillies as the counter staff think you can handle.

70 cents more will get you a can of soft drink as part of a 'combo pack'. Thankfully, they've put a stop to the earlier nonsense where a combo pack could only include a can of Coke (and not any of the other soft drinks).


The $4.50 Fish burger is also worth a mention: it's not the world's most brilliant burger, but it's a worthy way to put down some fried fish and salad. $6.50 with chips, $7.50 with chips and a drink.

Dan's has wandered beyond the fish options: a rotisserie graces the back wall and a great many chickens pass through it on their way to birdie heaven.

The chicken options start off at $4 for a sandwich, and then jump up to $6 for the obligatory quarter chicken and chips. Various other fractions of the chicken may also be procured, or you can take a whole bird back to the office for $12 (a good Fiji-style put-in lunch if ever there was one).

Salt, pepper, and vinegar (hallelujah!) are available at the counter for no extra cost. No tomato sauce is included, but there are 2 types of sachets that can be had for a bit extra. A little tub of coleslaw can be added for $1.80; and for the sweeth toothed among us, a small selection of 'desserts' from $2 - $3 (including something claiming to be a trifle).

The proprietors have done a good job of setting up the place, considering it's proximity to the service station. Clever use of some potted palms and rocks gives the outside eating area a bit of space for itself.


While we're talking about the proprietors, on one of his visits Kania Tiko noticed a poster up behind the counter proclaiming "God bless Management". Being office drones ourselves, this is a prayer we've often offered up (particularly now that Management is worried about The Recession); but we've never seen it quite so prominently displayed before, and regret not having photographed it. The shop is closed on Sundays, presumably so that staff can dedicate more time to offering up this supplication.

Parking can be tiresome ... there are enough cars trying to drive through a petrol station without you trying to park your car there; and the coming of Nando's has meant even more competition for space.

For breathing life into Suva's stale, brown-paper-bag-packed, oily-fish industry, for being clean, and for allowing us to choose Fanta with our combo pack, we give Dan's Fish and Chips a thumbs-up.

In Summary

Dan's Fish & Chips

Laucala Bay Road

Opening Hours:

10am - 6pm Monday to Saturday

Spend

$4 - $7.50 per person

Tulele's lovo lunch packs

Tulele's Lovo is little bit different to the establishment we usually review. There is no restaurant, just lunch pack delivery service. As far as we know, it is Suva's first eatery to accept online orders - all you internet-enabled desk jockeys can head over to the lovo order form, and line up your Friday lunch.


You get a quarter chicken, rourou in lolo, big pieces of dalo, a small lemon, and a couple of chillies. There is only one item on the menu so deciding what to eat is easy.

Chicken doesn't fit the usual lovo profile; we've come to expect dry, slightly smoky chicken from a lovo: this is tender and juicy. Thumbs up for that. Thumbs down for being inconsistent - we've found one in three is still bloody next to the bone.

Picky Eater and his significant other complain about the 'palusami', but this concern can be dismissed, because it isn't palusami - it is rourou and lolo, cooked in a pot. I think its rather good.


Full marks for freshness: the 'palusami' was obviously packed hot ... so hot it melted holes in the bottom of more than one Styrofoam takeaway container in the batch we ordered. One just hopes that one isn't eating melted phenylethane with the rourou.

Your meal can turn up anywhere between 1100 and 1330 depending on where you are located in the delivery run. You may need a microwave in the office to fully enjoy it.

Overall a fresh and tasty meal, if inconsistent in timing, packaging, and preparation.

In Summary

Tulele's Lovo

Online order form

Phone:

Letila on 9328 926 or Clemence on 9491 884

Delivery:

Friday: 12 - 1pm

Spend:

$6 per person

The Mango Café

The renovated premises of The Mango Café are a vast improvement over the old cafe: 2 stories now, air-conditioned, with a pleasant balcony along one side, and lots of glass and light. The atmosphere is relaxed and informal; the decor: muted.


Mango café offers breakfast, lunch and dinner menus ... and a sandwich bar. Whilst we've tried the lunch menu (the burgers and pasta dishes are good), this review is mainly concerned with their all-day breakfast menu.


Big Breakfast is hearty, but a little on the expensive side at almost $15.


A good bruschetta, available in vegetarian (shown above), chicken and bacon versions. The recipe is localised by way of a large hunk of long loaf as the base. This is the largest bruschetta I've ever seen, though the recipient feels a half-loaf would be appropriate given the long wait for service.


Eggs benedict with salmon: divine! Again, a little touch of Fiji in the form of long loaf slices instead of English muffin.


Italian eggs ... Kania Tiko praises these as the best scrambled eggs he has had in a long time. The sausage (cabanosi?) adds a nice contrasting taste and visual.


These coffee cups are beautiful, but a real ergonomic pain ... to the point of being a bit silly. Form follows function (or should for kitchenware); it's difficult to drink from this cup, and novelty of the design doesn't make up for that.


This little item is on the kid's breakfast menu as 'Toad in the hole'. If you come from British stock and know what a real toad in the hole looks like: redirect your righteous anti-American anger into hunting down the multitude of other names for the 'Egg in the hole/basket/nest'.

Whilst we have nothing but praise for the food, the front-of-house staff always seem to give us pause. The first time we were offered an iced drink on the house as an apology for delayed service only to have the offer withdrawn a minute later: "Sorry; that was meant for the next table."

The second time there was an ordering problem involving too many dishes and items that had been excluded from the order. This took 2 attempts to disentangle. Whilst we're a little puzzled as to why the waiter thought 4 dishes per child was a sensible interpretation of the order, the issue was solved to everyone's satisfaction with a minimum of fuss ... but it still took about 45 minutes for all the food to appear.

We're withholding a thumbs-up until the service issues sort themselves out, but the good food and pleasant atmosphere mean a thumbs-down would not be justified either.

In Summary

The Mango Café

Ratu Sukuna Rd, Nasese

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sun: 6:30am - 9:00pm

Spend:

$7 - $20 per person

The Daily Catch

Closed ... just like their predecessors. Kania Tiko believes there is a curse on the building: every business operating from this location seems to go under.

After being distinctly unimpressed with The Daily Catch in the first instance, many people suggested that they've pulled up their socks, are back in the game, and didn't deserve the panning they got in the first review.

So here we are again.

The concept remains the same: you pick the fish and they fry it up on the spot with a parcel of chips. The fish options range from $5 to $10. Mussels and other extras sometimes show up as well.


The serves are generous: 3 or 4 pieces of fish and slightly more chips than one person wants to eat. The fish in batter is good. The chips are soggy. A lemon wedge was included with each serve, but no tomato sauce: you can buy that separately. There were no chillies included in the serve or on offer at the counter.

Each meal was dropped into a white paper bag (no cardboard tray) that was soon damp, translucent from the oil, and broke open. Given that every other serious fish and chip shop in town has a takeaway box (which works well), there's no reason to disadvantage your customers with poor packaging.

Coke and Pepsi fridges in the shop offer the usual range of canned acid to wash down the oily remnants of your lunch.

On the day I visited there were several other things that stood out, none of them particularly worrying by themselves, but adding up to a negative impression.

The display fridge had condensation problems preventing a good viewing of the fish on offer. Understandable when you have a display fridge in a non-air-conditioned environment, but still annoying and unsightly.

The fryer vent hood was not working that day, so they had a desk fan blowing across the top of the fryers ... ensuring each new visitor to the shop got hit with the smell of hot oil as they came through the door.

Whilst I don't approve of aquariums in fish and chip shops (it seems rude to stare at the little fellows while you wait for their bigger cousins to get fried up for lunch) they don't bother me ... but this fish tank featured a couple of tough little fellows swimming in water that was vomit green.

Add to that the blaring serenade of a Christian radio station being piped into a room with bare concrete walls ... and I don't ever want to go back.

No matter what your opinion of The Daily Catch, you can't help but miss the old Cakaudrove Fish.

In Summary

The Daily Catch

11 Bureta St, Samabula

Opening Hours:

Monday - Saturday: Lunch

Spend

$5 - $10 per person

Verdict:

Thumbs-down

Merchant Curry House

Unless you are accompanied by a regular, your first visit to Merchant Curry House may be a little strange. This small eatery is tucked away at the back of the Merchant Club parking garage, beneath the Purple Haze nighclub.


The menu board has no prices, and little relation to what's available. The food warmers are perpetually empty. A large cardboard cut-out of a mutant iguana oversees all proceedings. Don't let any of this put you off: you are very close to a good Fiji-style curry.


The best approach is to ask what's available. Our visit coincided with the availability of the chicken and lamb curries, and these were ordered with a vegetable curry side, dhal and roti.


The lamb curry (above) was a little on the bland side, but tender. A good meal.


This excellent chicken curry deserves a bit of explanation. The picture above is the 'live' chicken curry (as opposed to the 'frozen' chicken curry). The 'live' curry is $1 dearer and is prepared from freshly slaughtered free-range chicken (junglee murgi). The Hindustani swear that these make better curries than the 'soft', commercially farmed chickens. They also reckon that meat curry is tasteless without the bones.

We have heard good reports about the goat and various seafood curries but haven't had the occasion to try them yet. Let us know if you have.

You're expected to eat with your fingers (as God intended) but spoons are provided.

The proprietors seem quite flexible with requests: less roti, more roti, swap this for that and give me more of the other ... we heard all of these, and all were accommodated.

The members from the Merchant Club next door occasionally shout orders through the window: the curry house doubles up as the club kitchen and provider of 'curry chasers'.

Should you chose to eat in, be prepared to make conversation with the squash players passing on their way to the squash courts via the stairs ... you will also have to ignore your conscience as these masters of lunchtime exercise survey your artery clogging endeavours.


On that note, as is our tradition when reviewing curry houses, here are the oily remains of the meal. What can we say? Good Fiji curry always seems to carry a cholesterol tax.


Merchants Curry House accepts phone orders and (according to their sign) offer some catering services.

In Summary

Merchant Curry House

Merchant Club,
Cnr of Butt St and MacArthur St

Phone:

9229 457

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sat: All day

Spend:

$3 - $7.50 per person

Chinese fast food at the Handicraft Centre

How in the name of all that is tasty does one review an eatery with no name?

Casting around for inspiration, I wandered off to This Is Why You're Fat, a website dedicated to photographically documenting strange American foods that are hard to name, and even harder to explain.

While staring at The Sandwich of Knowledge it became clear to me that inspiration would not strike; so here I am again, reviewing a Chinese fast food hole-in-the-wall located behind the stairs, under the carpark, at the Suva Handicraft Centre.


The Lunch in Suva crew usually just refer to it as "The Handicraft Centre".

"Steak and Eggs at the Handicraft Centre?" someone will ask; and given that there's only one place at the Handicraft Centre selling food, everyone knows what he's talking about.

And now you do too.


The aforementioned steak and eggs is the signature dish. Several slabs of dalo and a good serving of thinly-sliced, marinated steak make up the base. Add to that the better part of a whole onion (fried up in the same soy sauce marinade as the steak) and top the whole plate off with 2 sunny-side-up eggs ... and a lettuce leaf.

This steak will not win awards; but at $7, it is generous, tasty, and hits the spot if you're hungry.


The chop suey is usually served quite hot in large amounts. The chicken (pictured above) and beef versions are par for the course. Unless you're running close to broke, you will want to steer clear of the sausage chop suey ... and likewise the combination (beef, chicken and sausage).

The soup must be mentioned: I haven't tried it -- and therefore can't recommend it -- but a large number of patrons seem to give it their full attention.


Service is prompt. Pay at your table when the food is delivered. The place is a little on the rough side, but busy enough. I usually eat at the concrete tables outside the establishment (the space inside is small and stuffy). Takeaway is a popular option, particularly if the weather is bad.

In Summary

'Hole in the Wall' at the Suva Handicraft Centre

Stinson Parade

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sat: Lunch

Spend:

$5 - $7 per person