The Chai Shop, North Sydney (17th November 2011)

Despite Violet having left our team in FNZ (making the female headcount even smaller than it already was), Julie-Ann and I still continued our regular Thursday girls' lunch and today went to check out The Chai Shop located on the Plaza Level food court in Greenwood Plaza. I've walked past this Indian shop several times and often see many people who work in this area of North Sydney of Indian ethnicity having lunch here - must be pretty good to attract so many of them! So us girls headed over to the diner around 11.45am and it was still quite quiet when we arrived (we were probably the first two to get there as there were no queues). 

There were plenty of curries available, ranging from mild to spicy, served with your choice of rice and naan. I was greedy and went for the non-vegetarian thali (cost $12.90) which comes with rice, naan and poppadom with my choice of a vegetarian and two meat curries - I chose the Mixed Vegetable Curry, Chicken Madras and Goa Fish Curry. As I paid and collected my thali at the cashier, I added a teaspoonful of yoghurt and cucumber raita onto it (there were other condiments as well for self-serving sitting by the counter) and was off to find us a table while Julie-Ann was waiting for her vegetable dosa (fermented crepe with curried vegetable filling that was prepared on order).

Non-vegetarian Thali ($12.90) - basmati rice, naan, poppadum with 
Mixed Vegetable curry, Chicken Madras and Goa fish curry

The Chai Shop in Greenwood Plaza food court

Mmm, the thali was very nice and I love the curries I got with my meal - they were similar to Malaysian curries that have a more watery consistency than the thick, creamy Indian curry which often makes me feel quite greased out by the end of the meal. The dish was a bit too much for me but it was delicious and I couldn't help myself so ended up polishing off most of the curries, leaving behind only part of the naan and some of the basmati rice. Julie-Ann's dosa looked pretty impressive and was also rather huge (she only managed to eat half of it). As we chatted over our meals, I found out that the Indians who were seen having their lunch in this area of the food court weren't actually eating food from The Chai Shop but mostly brought their own packed lunch. And I thought it was because the food here was so good (fortunately it was)! Will have to come back again to try out their other curries and perhaps some of the Indian sweets too.