Amma's Cafe
• By Tuan Nguyen
There's good choice in the city for Indian, Malaysian and Thai curries, but not too long ago a Sri Lankan cafe opened up in The Vic Arcade offering some mighty tasty and spicy curries. That place would be Amma's Cafe.
The Mystical Mistress of Spice, AKA mum, helps run the back whilst Baby Spice, the bubbly daughter does the cooking and also mans the front. Together this duo are serving up some great dishes to a fast growing fan base. You'll usually find chicken and beef curries, with the Asian vegetables dishes on rotation depending on what is in season - sinqua, bittermelon, okra and others. If you haven't heard of those then that's OK as I can assure you they're tasty. Spiced potatoes and dal can usually be found on offer too. Vegetables never tasted so good my dear readers, and that's coming from a meat eater.
Evidently Sri Lankan's love spice because some of the dishes pack some serious heat, enough to break a sweat on ones brow. There is actually a 100m fire exclusion zone all the way around Amma's Cafe at all times to prevent the Vic Arcade from burning down again. But it is not chilli for the sake of chilli as the flavours are very well balanced. You get free raita and poppadums with every meal too, the former a necessary addition to even out the spiciness. Plus who doesn't like free stuff?
I admit I'd never had Sri Lankan curry until now but I'm liking it a lot. Amma's curries are not too heavy like the Indian offerings around town, and not too oily as Malay curries can be.
On Friday night's they do a 3 course pub hopping string hopper meal. Dunno what that is but it sounds exciting and stay tuned for a separate review on that. But for your lunch time curry needs, Amma's Cafe is worth a good look.