Flora Indian Restaurant and Cafe, Part 2

238 Flinders St

Melbourne, 3000

Second Chances.  I rarely give them to restaurants that I’ve had bad experiences with, no matter how glorious the reviews for the place are. But a good word from a good friend can do wonders. And if the food happens to be from her native country, then I’m sold. I was all for disliking Flora until Sneha mentioned in passing that they did the best Indian curry in the city, which led me to think: what if I just ordered the wrong thing last time?

Beef Madras (large, $10.5)

Turns out I was ordering the wrong things after all. The Beef Madras (large, $10.5) was divine. The flavours were deep and rich, the sauce with piping hot and contained whole chillies and bay leaves, in which floating tender chunks of beef. It was toted to be ‘medium’ in terms of spiciness, but it wasn’t all that spicy, but the heat did slowly build on the palate as you work your way through the brass bowl.

Plain Dosa ($6)

The curry didn’t come with rice, but that’s no issue considering that we had ordered the Plain Dosa ($6), which is like an enormous, thin pancake served with coconut sambal and chutney. The chutney was a bit watery and is more like a soup, but the sambal was sweet with desiccated coconut and perfect for cutting through the heat of the curry. It was a joy to break off a crunchy golden shard of dosa to dip into the sambal, or to tear off a soft spongy section to soak up the curry sauce. And did I mention that the dosa was enormous?

No seriously, look at it. LOOK AT HOW ENORMOUS IT IS.

Moral of the story: it pays to give those who have wronged you a second chance, they might just surprise you. Or at the very least they’ll provide you with a giant pancake.

Rating: 14/20 – ATTACK OF THE GIANT DOSA