Things I ate, places I went, and what I thought of it all...

Montezuma’s (Melbourne St, North Adelaide)
Meh. Okay if you like the same ten or so ingredients recombined fifty different ways. Standard stuff including tacos, nachos and chill con carne but also some wacky entries like the dubious sounding garlic prawn nachos. There are better places to eat round there.

Curry Chongs (Food Court, Central Market, Adelaide)
Still doing the best damn chicken curry in this town, and at a ridiculously cheap price. You can eat in the food court and sympathize with fellow Chong customers as your stomach slowly fills to bursting point as a result of being given a platter sized portion of delicious rice, curry and veggies from only $6.50. The Laksa House two stalls down also rates a mention here, as does the Vietnamese stall near the entrance with their made to order cold rolls, and the ever popular Ricky’s Chicken Rice. Not sure what’s in that green sauce they serve but damn, it’s good.

Goodlife Organic Pizza (170 Hutt St, Adelaide)
If you haven’t been here yet, do it. I went to a birthday dinner here the other day and our ‘private function room’ was the garden shed, whitewashed and complete with tealights and music from speakers on the walls. Now that’s atmosphere. Not only do they serve my favourite wine, the hard-to-find Rockford Alicante Bouchet, but the swiss brown mushroom pizza with garlic aioli ($14.50/21.90) is bloody amazing. Everything is organic and local and there is just no comparison. How people should eat.

Bazu (39 Gouger St, Adelaide)
Fuck yes, hot pot! Get excited because this Schezuan restaurant serves one of the world’s greatest interactive meals. The hot pot involves cooking your own food, morsel by morsel, right at your table in a steaming vat of aromatic broth. Take the checklist and choose between paper thin slices of lamb or beef, pork dumplings, fresh tofu, Chinese spinach, bean vermicelli and seafood. Get some sesame garlic sauce for the side and you’re ready for action. Chuck in anything or everything and wait for the magic to happen. Then, as each spinach leaf is steamed, dumpling stewed and tofu slice tender, it’s your job to locate the ladle (which has often slipped unnoticed to the bottom of the broth, thereby requiring excellent chopstick skills to retrieve it) and remove the morsels as they become ready and whack em in your chops. You’ll find Bazu upstairs between the Buddha Bar and Cibo. I’ll probably be there too.

Wild Thyme Organic Market & Café (Melbourne St, North Adelaide)
The way the world is heading. These guys have the right idea with their café shop front and organic supermarket out the back, where you can buy all the ingredients of the quinoa salad or organic chicken ceasar wrap you just ate. That said, it’s surprising to see so many brands and products there that I already buy, so clearly everyone’s jumping on this bandwagon into the organic, free range, free trade products. You can takeaway or eat in, and they also do awesome coffee. Like a younger, more environmentally and socially conscious version of The Store. Lots of young trendies spotted here recently.