20190215 Taj Tandoor and Brunelli

And so the show begins! It's Fringe Festival time. It's the opening night of the fringe and the streets have been cordoned off and the people have taken over. The Elephant was relatively quiet compared to the buzz outside. Richard's friend, Jeremy, met up to collect the $140 for the Tim Minchin Concert ticket I bought. I was the first to arrive at the Elephant because I finish work at 5 and walk across the road. My new job is very central to Rundle Street being on Grenfell Street. I forget to order a jug and end up paying $12 for a pint of lager.

It's my turn to choose tonight. I've already been proactive and booked the Indian restaurant the day before. We haven't been there since Chad's birthday about 4 years ago. We weren't too impressed with the food then, and we thought it was too pricey, but who knows, they may have a new chef.

They appear to have a special menu for the Fringe event, a smaller menu that usual, but it has all the favourites. Stephen and I went overboard and ordered entree, main and sides. Too much! A painful stomach afterwards confirmed this. Stephen ordered a glass of red wine and wasn't impressed with the quantity in the glass. It did look like a small serving. It wasn't cheap either at $8.50 a glass.

Stephen and Richard had a paper-fight. Who can make the best object with a square piece of paper? It was close with Stephen constructing a paper box (meant to be filled with water and thrown at people you dislike). But I think the winner by a whisker was Richard with his crane bird.

What do you order when you go to an Indian restaurant? Hint... too much food!

I had Vegetable Pakora and Malai Kotfa with rice and Garlic Naan to share with Stephen. Stephen had the Samosa and Chicken Madras with rice which went down nicely with the red wine. He was very complimentary about the food. 'Can't fault it' was his comment. High praise indeed from the fellow who has delicate taste buds. Chad had the fish curry and naan, Con had samosa and daal (with no rice but had naan) and Richard had beef malabar, rice and garlic naan.

We were initially only given 2 servings of rice in a rather decorative copper pot, but it was no trouble at all for the waitress to bring out an extra serving. All the curries tasted like they had fresh spices and the naan and rice were cooked to perfection. Con gave his overall rating a 6 whilst Stephen and I gave a 7 1/2 and Chad won with 9 out of 10. Richard, by this time, had already left to go a concert.

The atmosphere was most pleasant. The windows of the restaurant were open and we heard the buzz of people outside. We had a busker sitting right outside the restaurant and we could pick out Cat Stephens, Metallica and other favorites...

We went for coffee at Brunelli thinking that it would be quieter at that end of the street. We managed to get a table ok, but it took a while for the coffees to be made and I had to wait at the counter and serve ourselves. The waiters looked harassed poor things. Talking of harassment, we gave Stephen a beating about the De-veining Prawns incident at District 4 last year. Chad always pretends to get angry and try to flip the table as an example of how Stephen reacted (which isn't true :-) ). Stephen is used to our ribbing about the incident and shrugged it off. He was more interested in talking about American power voltages and the statistics of people who get injured by sticking their fingers into power sockets. Makes sense.

We have a busy weekend coming up with Toastmasters on Saturday and Sunday and Judith Lucy on Saturday night and the free theatre tickets on Sunday from Richard.