At the top of Cuba Street, oppo­site Fidel’s and next to a sex shop is what appears to be a crap­py lit­tle tea room named Chef’s Cafe. You might think that they’re going to try and sell you a pie and a cus­tard square, but you could­n’t be more wrong. See that lit­tle sand­wich board out­side that says “Take­away Cur­ry $10”? That’s right, this is an Indi­an restau­rant. And it’s good. And it’s insane­ly cheap*. If you dine in, you’re look­ing at a cost of around $12.90 for a meat cur­ry, rice and naan. The decor is admit­ted­ly noth­ing at all to look at, but the menu is real­ly exten­sive and the cur­ries do actu­al­ly all taste dis­tinc­tive and tasty, rather than just com­ing in dif­fer­ent colours of the same slop (cough cough Tul­si). Plus, it’s BYO, and not just wine — the cork­age on a small bot­tle of beer is $1, and $2 for big bot­tles. We real­ly think you should try it out. We would like it to have more patron­age. Just not on Tues­day nights, because that’s when we go before the Quiz around the cor­ner at the Cross.

* If you work on the basis that most Indi­an places charge at least $15 for a cur­ry, and that does­n’t include naan and in some cas­es does­n’t even include rice.