Sunday 29 November 2009

The Defence Club on Fridays

All the private clubs in Suva have a kitchen, the last remaining holdout was the Defence Club. With the demise of "Khana Kao" that used to be in the basement (selling something called "Indo-fijian cuisine"), the Defence Club has been without food for a couple of years (cheese, tamarind chutney, and breakfast crackers don't count).

Now the club is getting back into the lunch scene with a Friday cafeteria style offering. Usually only one or two options are offered, and the price ranges from $10 to $12. A lady named Joanna is in charge and apparently you can call her for orders as well (call the club at 3305037 and ask for her - Friday only).

The day we investigated the Seafood lunch was on offer and this menu included:

  • Dalo
  • Fried Fish in Lolo
  • Ota
  • Baked Kai
  • Lumi
  • Nama
  • Fruits ( watermelon / pineapple)
Overall a stunning success - slightly over our $10 per head policy, but we can justify it by saying that its a Friday only treat. Its a large meal, and when coupled with the $1.60 beers that one will be tempted to wash down the lolo with, your afternoon productivity will be severely impacted. You are probably better off telling the boss that you won't be "out in the field" for the rest of the day.
Make sure you eat your fruits. The fibre will help you shit later, and god knows that you'll be needing to shit after such a serve.

The menu changes every week. Typical offerings include Lovo (pork, chicken, palusami, wacipoki) and Curry (lamb, bhindi, pumpkin, chutney, rice). Ask them to put you on the mailing list and they will tell you whats for lunch via email.

In Summary

Defence Club Friday Lunch
57 Gordon St
Phone: 3305037
Opening Hours:
1200 - 1430 - Friday only
Spend:
$15 per person (assuming two beers)
Rating:
Thumbs-up

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi,
is there any chance of letting non-fiji readers know what some of those ingredients are? Dalo = taro?
Fried Fish in Lolo = coconut?
Ota?
Baked Kai?
Lumi
Nama?

also, you should do some Nadi reviews- i had a great mutton curry with dahl/rice and roti at a gas station near the airport -
cost $5 and it was excellent.
there's also a place a few doors down from the bounty bar - had a great chicken curry there. cheap too.
anyway- this blog's made me want to go to suva for my next fiji trip. just to eat!
thanks.

Anonymous said...

As someone wanting to visit fiji and reading the reviews, I was offended by the rude language of the reviewer,how can you get away with using the F word so much, even when answering someone's very legitimate question about food, that is not acceptable, if you were writing reviews here in N America, that would not be allowed, now I don't know how old you are, your gender, or even if you are a " local," but that kind of language comes across as if it is being written by someone who is totally immature or totally illiterate. go figure.
You know what they say about that , when you have to use the F word so much, it is because you are lacking enough vocabulary to use the proper words, besides I have never ever read a food review with such foul language, I suggest you go and find yourself a real job now, instead of eating all day.

You are doing a disservice to regular hardworking food reviewers, and also you are not doing any favours to the Tourism industry in FIji either, Kania TIko needs to learn some manners and proper language etiquette when writing reviews.

thank you and have a nice day.!

Anonymous said...

Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!