Posted on September 16, 2009 by by Lip Gloss Gal

Couldn’t be bothered cooking dinner tonight so grabbed a bite at Blu Ginger in Civic, an Indian restaurant.

We’ve been there once before for lunch and particularly enjoyed the flavours of the food and the excellent service but tonight’s outing wasn’t as good. The restaurant opened at 5pm. We arrived around 5.40pm and were seated straight away (no one else was in the restaurant at that point) but it took at least 20 minutes for our order to be taken. We were basically ignored. Our drinks order took another 15 minutes and was incorrect. Coke instead of Diet Coke.

While it took ages for dinner to arrive there was plenty of entertainment to ”enjoy”‘. Some some scruffy looking middle age man out on the street right near the restaurant (we had a window seat) decided to stop, for what we assume, was a  drunken kerbside pee. He just stood there, pecker exposed, taking a leak behind somebody’s car. It was so gross and disgusting and seemed to go on forever. At one point I thought he must have been a camel in a past life by the fountain of urine he was passing. Not that we looked for the whole time but could see out the corner of our eyes the guy was still there. Ick. After he zipped up he then proceeded to try to high five every person that walked past, most of the public servants on their way home. Not many offered their palms to him.

eventually he skulked off in the direction of the Canberra Centre.

Anyway, back to the food although it was surprising we were still able to eat after what we had just witnessed. We ordered a cheese naan each which were really yummy with cheese, melting, tender and oozing from inside. Definately worth a try. Next we shared two main dishes – both vegetarian and very tasty. First was the dahl tadka which was tasty lentils cooked in traditional spices and served with fresh coriander, tomato and ginger. We also had the baigan patiala which was eggplant and potato cooked in a rich tomato masala. That too was a delight, if a little bit oily. The eggplant was soft and umptous and the sauce sticky, spicy and surprisingly sweet. We shared a bowl of plain basmati rice which comes with aromatic cardom pods, cloves, saffron and other spices. Very tasty. By way of side dishes we ordered coconut banana, cucumber yoghurt and tomato salsa. The first two arrived shortly after the meal with the third when we had just finished eating so we turned it away.

I like this Indian restaurant. You can really taste the freshness of the ground spices they use. I just wish the service had been a little better and that the side show was scheduled for another time. If anyone else has eaten at Blu Ginger I’d love to hear your feedback.

Restaurant review: Blu Ginger at Civic, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

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