Visual Bites: Tamarind Hill
1 Comment
Karen Hamilton
November 22, 2009
How many times in your life have you had a meal that you can recall on your tastebuds for months?
It doesn’t happen that frequently for me. I get easily excited over food, and remembering any one pleasant experience gets difficult if you taste great dishes every single week. But a jaunt to the North Shore this weekend gave me the opportunity I needed to relive one particularly satiating lunch at a Malaysian restaurant in Upper Lonsdale – a place that my brother and I have been unable to forget since our first visit there this past September.
Tamarind Hill opened in early September in the restaurant-heavy block of Lonsdale and 15th. When traffic on the Lions Gate is negligible, it’s a 5-10 minute drive away from Park Royal and less than 20 minutes away from my home in Yaletown.
I’ve only ever been to the place for its lunch service…and at under $8 an entree, oh, what an affordable and delectable lunch it is!
Here’s a quick run-through of the first time that we lunched at Tamarind Hill.
I love fresh coconut juice when I can get it. Here, a young coconut carries the typical $5 price tag, outfitted with straw for the juice and a long spoon to carve out the meat from the hull.
We started with the $6.50 lamb murtabak. The plushness of this Malaysian-style roti with its spicy curry dip won me over while my brother was wowed by the side of gado gado: a salad of bean sprouts, tofu, green beans, potatoes, and cucumber drenched in a piquant peanut sauce.
My brother, being a big fan of fried rice, ordered the $7 Nasi Goreng, which was sizeable enough to overwhelm the two of us with its carb, beef, shrimp, egg, tomato, onion and green bean medley.
My choice was the $7 Malaysian curry laksa. While the staff at Tamarind Hill tell me that the coconut-based Singapore laksa is the more popular order, it is this bowl, dear readers, whose flavour profile has left an imprint on my gastronomic system that will not be soon erased.
It’s therefore no wonder that my brother and I had no other restaurant in our sights this Friday when we found ourselves in Lonsdale once more. We didn’t veer very far from our original choices – unusual for two people that are fond of exploring menus, but not surprising considering our initial lunch rapture.
This time, my brother selected a full serving of gado gado as our starter and stuck with the nasi goreng as his main. I didn’t need to glance at the menu, knowing full well that I would re-acquaint myself with that delicious curry laksa. It was with much reluctance that I doled out a cupful of said soup for my brother to sample…I suspect the emotion was on par with my brother’s separation anxiety from the bit of his nasi goreng meant for my share plate.
So folks, if you find yourself in North Vancouver with an appetite for something from Southeast Asia, consider lunch at Tamarind Hill. It’s my #1 pick in Lonsdale after only two visits (and honestly, after even the first one).
Are you never in the vicinity of the North Shore? Don’t fret – this Lonsdale location is the second Tamarind Hill in the Lower Mainland. Drive over to the original New Westminster establishment to have what I expect to be an equivalent dining experience. Make sure to come back and tell me what you think of that place, too.
Tamarind Hill
1440 Lonsdale Avenue | Lonsdale
(604) 990-0111
Categories: Food, North Vancouver, Restaurants
Comments
One Response to “Visual Bites: Tamarind Hill”
Got something to say?
About Tiny Bites
Tiny Bites is a food blog that explores all things edible and imbibable in Vancouver, British Columbia. More >
Our Forum: Chefs’ Table Talk
Chat with other Tiny Bites readers and BC's restaurant pros on the province's newest food community forum.
Articles by Karen Hamilton
Read the food and non-food articles that I've contributed to sites other than Tiny Bites.
Tiny Bites on the web
You can find additional Tiny Bites contributions at these sites:
[...] Visual Bites: Tamarind Hill [...]