Curries and spices....

Whoever doesn't like these aromatic flavours, raise your hands. A friend once told me that if you haven't tried East Indian food, you never had real good food. But to each his own, right? In fact, I was never a fan until I started cooking with real spices that required pounding, grinding, roasting and a lot of hard work and sweet lovin' to get the right consistency and taste. I'm not even sure if that's how they do it in East India but I know I had the right ingredients because they came directly fresh from Bombay.

That was long time ago. Since I left HongKong, I've never touched these aromatic spices until my 2nd year in Canada. I didn't realize that in my neighborhood, there was this specialty store that sells anything you can't find from your grocery store. Once in a while I'd try but since we had Amrikko opened in our area, we'd treat ourselves for a nice dinner. This weekend we went to their Nanaimo restaurant instead because we were 30 minutes early before dinner opens- and hungry! We were seated by the ocean view of Departure Bay where you can watch the ferries coming and going. Would be nicer if it were sunny and warm to sit outside. But it was still beautiful in the rain...

Our waiter was very helpful and his recommendation was the best of the dishes we had. I still loved my lamb vindaloo but the prawns dilwala were tender, tasty and delish! How about pretty colors?

Great with white wine: we had their house "Chilean" wine, not bad.

The way to a man's heart is his tummy and taste buds, indeed!

If you get the craving and around the area, Amrikko is the name.

Cheers! Have a great "tasty" weekend!