Vasandha Bhavan

Shop 19, The Crescent, Homebush NSW

Phone: (02) 9746 5530

I wanted to thank Jen for convincing me to enter into her Julie & Julie competition (of which i won a Julie & Julia pack with lots of gooodies), so i wanted to shout her to lunch! She refused, but agreed to go to lunch with me anyway hehe so here we are at Homebush, at a restaurant that my workmate had always suggested me to go. So when an Indian suggests and Indian restaurant, you know the food will be traditional and real. After all, he was born in India and lives there for the majority of his life.

Mango Lassi $3

There were only two sorts of lassi, the other was plain i think- i was hoping to have rose (that's my favourite!). It came in a tall glass, really too much to finish, but really refreshing on the palate, and was a perfect cooler for the food we had lined up.

vegetarian thali $11.90

For just under $12, what Jennifer got was a real bargain! 3 small portions of different curries, and a larger portion of a mixed vegetable curry, served with raita, rice & a papadum. The platter was too large to fit in one photo hehe. It was massive, and Jen was trying really hard to finish it.. but being Indian food, being so calorie dense, i advised her to take away for a mid afternoon snack..

Samosa's

Now here's a dilemma! Jen took photo's of the menu, and these babies were $4.90 each?? No way.. i really don't remember them costing that much. & on my take away menu i snapped from the door- show's $1.50. So i really have no idea how much they were, but they were undoubtly one of the nicer samosa's i've had. Pity they came sauceless (unlike at Billu's in Harris Park).

These were damn crisp on the outside (yet did not ooze bad oily stuff unlike some nasty foodcourt samosa's i've had in the past), and were stuffed with a lot of veggies & seasonings. Quite filling, and the reason why i had to take away half my main.

kashmiri naan $3.50

I love anything coconutty, so this naan was my definite pick! Thin and crispy (maybe a tiny bit too crispy), with bits of almond as well, this paired well with my cream based curry.

malai kofta $9.50

My curry was served in a metal dish with cute golden handles. What looked like a small serving, was really hard to finish & i really didn't want to stuff myself silly (portion control, diet, plan to un-expand my waistline) so i took home half.

A very creamy curry consisting of cottage cheese & potato dumplings (i made a little mess trying to dissect the dumpling for photographic reasons). I like how the curry was not just full of oil, (well if it was it was mixed through completely hehe) but i've had curries before which just tasted like i was eating oil.

I also ordered a cocnut chutney to go with my meal, totally un-regrettable as it was the best chutney i've ever had! It came out chilled, and was so refreshing. I think i finished off about three quarters of it, (i really like to overdose on my condiments). I love the texture of coconut, and could see some finely crushed almonds in the mix as well i think.

To finish off our meal, Jennifer shared with me her desert (part of her $12 meal) which was gulab jamun (wiki: made of a dough consisting mainly of milk solids (often including double cream and flour) in a sugar syrup flavored with cardamom seeds and rosewater or saffron) which was served cold. Not enough dessert if you ask me!

Indian is something i don't have often due to its high calorie content, but it is certainly one of my favorite foods to indulge in. Our next lunch date (hopefully soon) will be at Billu's in Parramatta which i have already been to, but they have such an extensive menu i could just keep going back again & again!

Billu's Eatery

62-64 Wigram Street
Harris Park NSW 2150
ph: 9687 7785
fax: 9687 7789

We felt like Indian tonight, so headed over to Harris Park (home of authentic Indian food & sweets).

They have a really vast menu, it took our friends quite a while to decide on what to order (me & Rick already knew what we wanted - DOSA!)

We also ordered a samosa, and rose lassi.

WE LOVE ROSE LASSI : it's a yogurt based drink, which you can have salty, sweet or spicy. In our case, the rose is the nicest as it's beautifully sweetened with sugar and rose water. It's very refreshing, and is great to cool down your mouthif you're eating something really hot & spicy :)

The samosa, was $2 and was more then its value worth. It came with a sweet & sour dipping sauce, the samosa here is the nicest i've ever had. Big chunks of potato, mixed with onions, spices & chilli, wrapped in a crunchy pastry.

Both Rick & I ordered dosa's (me the Paneer dosa, Rick the Masala dosa)

The picture below was Rick's one, mine looked the same pretty much except had a different filling.

Dosa is a vegetarian dish, so Rick's one had potato, fried onions & spices, mine had paneer (which is an indian type cheese) with tomato and spices aswell.

Both were served with coconut chutney (this was DIVINE i would love to have this with every meal that i eat), and some curry soup which was mildly hot.


The Dosa's were humungous, we had trouble finishing it ended up eating just abit over half of the whole thing, and it only cost about $11 each - super duper bargain :)

i LOVED the crunchy batter that was wrapped around the fillings, i could taste the ghee (oil), it was just super crunchy but surprisingly not too greasy.


Danny was my bestfriend back in highschool, we lost contact after school, and found each other again last year (thats like 5 years of no contact!!)

We've started hanging out more often the four of us i really enjoy their company!!

Billu's - come here if you want a cheap, authentic, indian meal. Servings are huge so share around (don't do what we always do and over order lol)