Thursday, February 17, 2011

Australia's Sunshine Kebabs

Its not from Australia (even though they claim to be in multiple countries, I'm sure they are like some side street places).
They have no sunshine! (figuratively)
And they definitely don't have Kebabs (atleast not the usual ones we get in Indian restaurants)

A big big let down! Not that I expected much, but still this was huge let down.

VidC wanted to try out this place as Kebabs are always tempting. I was curious too, they had a fancy opening with some starlet inaugurating the place. And of course the tag of being from Australia. We checked with our sources in Australia and they had never heard of this place (why am I not surprised). So we went this afternoon to grab some Lebanese/Turkish lunch with guest foodie Sapadrama.

The place looked in a sad mood. Empty, evidently short staffed and confused. There was one guy taking orders, one guy cooking chicken and one guy just looking around the food. This was a place with food having funny names (unheard of for a non-globe trotter). But with just one guy taking orders, he was too busy to attend to us. We felt ignored. But we somehow found out what each dish was and we decided on what we wanted to eat.

Now look at the menu. Apart from the kebabs, burgers and healthy boxes, they had some called Gozleme (Turkish stuffed parata) and Lahmacun (Turkish pizza). That interested us and we decided get one of each. And lo they did not have it at that point! They had not kept their specialties. Slightly disappointed I got myself a grilled halloumi kebab, VidC got a chicken burger and Sapadrama got himself a mixed veggie platter. It's self service. The total bill came up to Rs.406.

 They served the food fairly quick, since the chicken is grilled constantly like the shawarma grill. The chicken burger and my kebab was served first. Except that my kebab was a wrap (I'd never heard of a wrapped kebab but I guess that's how the Turkish have it). So while we were waiting for the veggie platter, Sapadrama and I were sharing the wrap. It tasted good. I was like finally something is fine here. The cheese was salty and tasted like paneer. But I just searched about halloumi cheese and they are a salty cheese, so these guys serve authentic stuff (I feel slightly bad giving them any good points after what happened next). So while we were sharing the wrap, I suddenly see a not so familiar ingredient in the wrap. And when I check it, it turns out to be chicken! They served me chicken wrap! I understand they were short-staffed (actually I don't) but this is serious business. What if some staunch vegetarian was served this! They immediately changed the wrap but offered no return of money, but just said some sorrys and left.

Then came the mixed veggie platter, and it was least to say horrible. Several mounds of raw vegetables (including raw mushrooms) and 3 huge balls of Falafel and 5 pita bread. The Falafel was a huge to the power of infinity led down. It was dry, no taste and the Hummous served was pathetic. No taste of chickpeas, garlic or olive oil! I could not eat anymore. Sapadrama was very indignant about the serving of non-veg to a vegetarian and frankly the chicken tasted ok. Not something which should make you go to the place.

Sigh! what a lunch! Bad food, not so great service and did I mention bad food. They have a great location in terms of visibility but very bad food. Ambiance doesn't matter half as much if the food is bad (I cant get enough of it). We'd had awesome food at half the price last week.

Anyway, visit this place at your own risk. Maybe they had a bad day today. Maybe you'll have a better experience. Their staff started coming when we were leaving. But its YOUR RISK.

Place: Australia's Sunshine Kebabs (directions)
Cusine: Lebanese/Turkish - actually other than Falafel, everything was named Turkish
Website: www.sunshinekebabsindia.com
Value for Money - 2/10

Food we wasted end of Lunch! 


Until next week! 

2 comments:

  1. I'm sure we'll have better stuff in our Arabic food festival in office!!
    But 2 thumbs down for the place!

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  2. Just wanted to chime in as a Turk, wrapped kebab (we only call it as wrap since those are not really a kebab) is like our fastfood here in Turkey so only prefered by people who are in hurry, and it is advised to not put anything (like tomato or sauce) in wrap to have a better taste of the meat. So only good quality and well marinated meat will offer a tasty wrapped kebab experience.

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