Shabu Shabu at MHCC

Shabu Shabu looks a bit lonely in the MHCC food court. A lot of people don't seem to know what to make of it. Even during the busiest lunch rush, there are always empty seats at the counter.

To be fair, the place is a bit confusing: part teppanyaki joint, part sushi roll bar, part Korean food outlet ... and both Korean and Japanese food can be a little daunting for first-timers without a guide.


That said, allow me to point out a few things worth trying.

First up, bibimbap, a selection of vegetables (some pickled, some cooked, some raw), chili paste, and a fried egg on a large bowl of rice.


This Korean dish is usually served with kimchi and some soup (below).

At $8 a serve, this dish performs very well on the price-performance curve ... and how can any self-respecting Fiji resident say no to a dish featuring chili paste? This particular bibimbap is also vegetarian, so it's not going to get you in trouble with PETA.


On the Japanese side of the fence, teriyaki beef (or you can get chicken or tuna ... whatever the edicts of your god permit).



This one gets cooked on the teppan in front of you, and is served with a selection of veges and rice. Not as big, impressive or filling as the bibimbap, but still a good meal. $8.



The rice from Shabu Shabu always seems to be on the cold side ... this is a little puzzling for an Asian restaurant, but doesn't detract too much from the meals.

Everything on the menu seems to come in between $7 and $8, except the ebi prawns.

A variety of sushi and sashimi selections are available, or start with the California rolls if you need a gentle introduction. The Korean version, kimbap, is also on offer.

The Korean soups are also worth a try: the chicken kalguksu is a good starting place. Shabu Shabu actually has a bigger selection of soups than Joji's so play the field a little and find something you like.

We've no idea how long this Korean-owned, would-be-Japanese eatery will survive, so try it while it's still around ... or there's always its parent restaurant in Ra Marama House, but that is a couple of magnitudes up the price scale.

For good value, a large selection of soups, having the balls to install a teppan in a food court, and confusing us all with an eclectic mix of Korean and Japanese, a tentative thumbs-up.

In Summary

Shabu Shabu

MHCC Food Court, Level 2, MH City Centre, sandwiched between Thompson St, Renwick Rd, and Nabukalou Creek.

Opening Hours:

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

Spend:

$7 - $15 per person

Rating:

Thumbs-up

Hop Hing Cafe

Hop Hing sits opposite the beer factory in Walu bay. It plies a regular trade with the brewery, warehouse, oil, and wharf workers in the area. They serve up your typical pseudo-chinese food, plus the usual morning tea items (cake, buns, tinned meat etc.)

We tried two fairly representative items on the menu, first the combination short soup.
Kania Tiko is somewhat of a connoisseur of the Combination Short Soup. It has diced chicken, roast pork and red pork (but no beef strangely enough). The broth is superior to that of Mrs. Yangs, and doesn't need chillying up (but I chilly it up anyway out of force of habit). My main objection is the paucity of vegetables, all we have a couple of carrots and small handful of cabbage. Its the lack of veges and vege-variety that prevent this from challenging Hot & Spicy's position at the top of the totem pole of Suva's Combination Short Soups. At $9 its only 50 cents cheaper than Hot & Spicy, so it can't really compete on the price-performance curve either.

This is chicken chow-mein. Its stir-fried chicken, cabbage, carrots, and onions with noodles. You've all eaten this before so there is no point in me crapping on about it. It is hot and freshly cooked and costs $6.

This is the menu. If you can read it, then I congratulate you. If you can't go to Walu bay and read the real one.

The following video has absolutely nothing to do this review. I just think it would be cool to have a robot bartender in ones house, and also I want to send a big "Fuck You" to the Associated Press, for this display of stupidity.

In Summary

Hop Hing

Foster Rd, Walu Bay, Suva

Opening Hours:

Monday - Saturday: 7am - 5pm

Spend

$4.00 - $9.00 per person

Yang's Restaurant

Yang's Restaurant is on Pratt St., opposite Suva Central and next to the Hare Krishna. Prominent local media harlot Culden Kamea notes "that it's easy to spot because they hang their roast duck, chicken and pork in the front window". He also observes that their Combination Long and Short Soup is "world famous", and that is where this review starts:
The soup is both short (it has won tons) and it is long (it has noodles). The combination bit must come from the roast chicken, beef and roast pork. The lady (we'll call her Mrs. Yang) spoons out the broth, noodles, and won tons from three big pots. The meat and veges are cut with a pair of scissors and placed in the bowl - as far as I know no other short order cook in Suva that cooks with scissors.

We won't comment as to whether the soup is "world famous" but it is certainly Mrs. Yang's most popular order, and at $6.80 its great the value for money. If there is a negative point it is that the broth is rather bland, so chilli it up first.

Other highlights include the Red Pork, which comes with rice, cabbage, some sort of wierd black sauce, and a bowl of that same broth as the soup. With no tasty fillings to break the monotony the full blandness of the broth hits you, but you can probably use it as a dipping sauce. This is also $6.80. A simple dish done well.

If you are short of cash you can get fish/sausage and chips for $3.

There are seven tables, and the establishment can get quite warm, with only a lone oscillating fan struggling bravely against small room full of large sweaty island folk. In the back of the room there is a 'bar' that has long since ceased to serve alcohol and now serves as the washing up station.

In Summary

Yang's Restaurant

Pratt St, Suva
Opposite Suva Central

Opening Hours:

Monday - Saturday: 9am - 8pm

Spend

$3 - $6.80 per person

Verdict:

Thumbs-up

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

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

Soup Works

Soup Works does not fit neatly into any of the usual categories of lunching establishments: it does not have it's own premises; it does not reside in a food court; it does not offer eat-in service.

Soup Works exists behind a counter in MH Superfresh, Tamavua. It is inside the supermarket, squeezed in between the cheese fridge and the delicatessen.


The place is clean, neat, simple, and has a substantial menu ... consisting exclusively of soups (over 40 at last count). There is a significant bias toward the Asian soups, but these are widely sourced: Laksa from Malaysia, Tom Yum from Thailand, and all the favourites from China; alongside a selection of European cream-of-vegetable and minestrone variations.

My favourite is the Tom yum Seafood, pictured below.


The general idea with Soup Works is that you place your order, and then spend the waiting time (between 10 to 15 minutes) wandering the aisles of MH, collecting the various necessaries listed on the shopping list which you have kept handily in your pocket for just such a a moment as this.

All soups are cooked on the spot and to order, so you have the opportunity to specify variations to the house recipe.

Your soup comes handily packaged for the road. A warning however: the soup is hot! If you're planning on driving away with it, it's best to have a side-kick along to keep the soup containers upright while you navigate the potholes.

For excellent soup -- and a simple, well-executed catering concept -- Lunch In Suva give Soup Works a big thumbs up.

In Summary

Soup Works

MH Superfresh Shopping Centre, Tamavua

Phone:

3623 362, 9290 088, 9355 679

Opening Hours:

Mon - Thu: 9:00am - 8:00pm

Fri - Sat: 9:00am - 9:00pm

Sun: 9:00am - 2:00pm

Spend:

$5.50 - $9.00 per person

Verdict:

Thumbs-up

Photos by abuke_2004