Martin FrimetFunky Curry keeps it fresh
April 6th 2008 23:52
Ask most long-term Melburnians what they thought you were doing spending time on King Street, at the bottom end of the city’s CBD, and they’d probably either eye you with a lewd nod and wink or with a look of old-fashioned outrage. Until recently the hub of the city’s prostitution trade, King Street, situated minutes away from the Southern Cross station, now attracts a different kind of visitor in the shape of the countless hostellers and backpackers who trawl the area each day looking for somewhere to spend the night.
With those backpackers seems to have come an explosion of cheap fast food joints designed to entice those who are too tired, too lost or too tipsy to find anywhere fresher to eat. In the shape of places like Subway and Nando’s, King Street is home to many of the sights, the smells and the slogans that travellers will recognise well from wherever they call home. Just a little further down, however, it is also home to the second incarnation of the city’s Funky Curry restaurants, a place that seems willing to offer those with a more wandering palette a bolder option.
Everything about Funky Curry, which opened its second store on King Street three years after a first store opened further up the city on Bourke Street, is trying to be a little different. Indian music plays proudly onto the street through wide open doors, beckoning in the cold or the curious. Decoration, meanwhile, is a slightly mind-jarring collection of diversely coloured cloths, paints and pictures. Most oddly of all, the owner of Funky Curry 2 seems to have attacked his venue in black marker pen, with a range of funny comments and cute facts scrawled along all the walls and on every single stall and seat.
Thus looking and feeling something like the aftermath of an explosion in a circus’ Big Top, it is surely one of the oddest places to eat in all of Melbourne but, crowned by eager staff who genuinely seemed happy to be there, Curry Club 2 somehow manages to feel welcoming, homely even.
As for the food, Funky Curry is first and foremost a cheap option. $10 will get you a full meal, and might even buy you a soft drink or a cup of one the restaurant’s speciality teas. Yet, despite the low prices, food is prepared fresh to order and the portions feel more than adequate. A chick-pea curry we tried was simple but filling and a lamb special contained plenty of meat and a tantalisingly warm and smoky flavour that left me wanting to mop up every last drop. Rice is, of course, available with every meal while the Indian bread we also tried was beautifully soft and silky, if a little bland.
Funky Curry was different in so many ways. Different in the way it looked, the way it sounded and the way it acted, and, most important of all, in the way it tasted. By serving its food as fresh and as fulsomely as it did, Funky Curry made me forget where I was and what I had paid and, for that, should be high on the hit-list of both hard-up travellers and clued-up locals.
Funky Curry 2
212 King Street
Melbourne
With those backpackers seems to have come an explosion of cheap fast food joints designed to entice those who are too tired, too lost or too tipsy to find anywhere fresher to eat. In the shape of places like Subway and Nando’s, King Street is home to many of the sights, the smells and the slogans that travellers will recognise well from wherever they call home. Just a little further down, however, it is also home to the second incarnation of the city’s Funky Curry restaurants, a place that seems willing to offer those with a more wandering palette a bolder option.
Everything about Funky Curry, which opened its second store on King Street three years after a first store opened further up the city on Bourke Street, is trying to be a little different. Indian music plays proudly onto the street through wide open doors, beckoning in the cold or the curious. Decoration, meanwhile, is a slightly mind-jarring collection of diversely coloured cloths, paints and pictures. Most oddly of all, the owner of Funky Curry 2 seems to have attacked his venue in black marker pen, with a range of funny comments and cute facts scrawled along all the walls and on every single stall and seat.
Thus looking and feeling something like the aftermath of an explosion in a circus’ Big Top, it is surely one of the oddest places to eat in all of Melbourne but, crowned by eager staff who genuinely seemed happy to be there, Curry Club 2 somehow manages to feel welcoming, homely even.
As for the food, Funky Curry is first and foremost a cheap option. $10 will get you a full meal, and might even buy you a soft drink or a cup of one the restaurant’s speciality teas. Yet, despite the low prices, food is prepared fresh to order and the portions feel more than adequate. A chick-pea curry we tried was simple but filling and a lamb special contained plenty of meat and a tantalisingly warm and smoky flavour that left me wanting to mop up every last drop. Rice is, of course, available with every meal while the Indian bread we also tried was beautifully soft and silky, if a little bland.
Funky Curry was different in so many ways. Different in the way it looked, the way it sounded and the way it acted, and, most important of all, in the way it tasted. By serving its food as fresh and as fulsomely as it did, Funky Curry made me forget where I was and what I had paid and, for that, should be high on the hit-list of both hard-up travellers and clued-up locals.
Funky Curry 2
212 King Street
Melbourne
| 49 |
| Vote |
Shared on
Subscribe to this blog
