Curry and Chips

"Curry and chips" sounds like the end of a bad night on the tiles with your English lager-lout mates, but Glen Waverley's curry canteen is a world away from such debauchery.

The restaurant's name was taken from the 1969 British sitcom Curry and Chips. The show starred Spike Milligan and blatantly sent up racial stereotyping but was canned after six episodes. Curry and Chips's owner, Sri Lankan-born Glen Labrooy, found it hilarious and still plays the DVDs in the shop.

This Curry and Chips is a massive Sri Lankan canteen, a one-stop shop for spices and sambals; curry powders and pastes; savoury pastries; and traditional sweets such as milk toffee and love cake. It's typical Burgher food, a cuisine that came about during British and Dutch rule in Sri Lanka.

It's been here for years but its core business has always been "home replacement meals", such as snap-frozen curries and biryanis.

What's new is the large sit-down area and the introduction of hopper and kothu roti nights, where chefs prepare the specialty dishes in the restaurant (best to book).

Hopper nights run Wednesday to Sunday and an all-you-can-eat meal buys you four big bowl-shaped, pancakey hoppers (made with rice flour and coconut milk) with spongy centres and crisp edges. They come stacked inside each other with a soft-yolked egg cooked into the top hopper. Then, load up your tray with meat or fish curries from the bain-marie up the back.

On Friday and Saturday nights, there's a kothu roti station as well. Roti is placed on a flat grill, chopped into ribbons and cooked with your choice of ingredients - cheese, beef, chicken, lamb, egg, onion, capsicum - and served with curry on the side.

Weekdays, the "quick lunch" might yield a cardamom-rich lamb curry or a full-on gutsy fish stew, plus green beans with chilli and cumin, a thickish yellow dhal and a vegetable mix of cauliflower, carrots and onion; at $9.90 it's an outright bargain.

Curry and Chips does have some problems, such as inconsistencies in temperature. My lunchtime kothu roti could have been hotter, and on the night I went for hoppers, the lamb curry brought out to replenish the bain-marie was cold. This markedly detracted from what were otherwise great dishes.

Other dishes can miss the mark entirely, such as a venison special with overcooked meat, and the chocolate biscuit pudding tasting of uncooked butter with a grainy texture. Thewattalappam - spiced coconut custard - is way better and the pick of the sweets.

But before you start thinking, "There's no way I'm going there," hold off, because there are highlights, such as the traditional lamprie, a baked banana-leaf-wrapped parcel of biryani rice loaded with cardamom and mustard seeds, with two tasty fish balls, eggplant, some dried fish, a hot sambal and your choice of curry.

And the best bit? You can still have a lager and, at lunch, chicken curry with chips for dunking.

nrousseau@theage.com.au