Kiroran. A Uygur Restaurant

When la chouquette sucrée suggested by email one day that the yummers should try a Uygur restaurant I was kinda confused. Staring at the word on my computer screen I slowly tried to pronounce the word. Much to the discomfort of my fellow work mates it came out sounding like Uhhhhiguuuarrrrh. The COO of the company sticks his head over the divider, concerned that I may be passing a kidney stone. Luckily he had eaten this type of food before and ensured me it was pronounced wee-goor. I was thankful for that because the way I was saying it I thought it may be the sound you would make on the toilet the day after eating said food.  

Kiroran, one of a couple of Uygur restaurants on the much forgotten side of Dixon street, probably the restaurant I would have chosen if just walking by because they had a picture of a entire cooked lamb in their front window.

Whole friggin cooked lamb! Nice.

Unfortunately the menu said a days notice is required to order the whole lamb so sorry folks, not this time. I'm not sure if that was a typo on the menu but if they can prepare an entire lamb on a days notice....respect.I would give them a few more days notice just to avoid disappointment.

After taking a minute to accept the fact there will be no whole tandoori lamb this night, we focus on the other delicacies on offer.

Farewell warm days....sort of..

Well it's the end of spring/summer, no wait it's back again. Ok now it's the end, hang on here's another warm day. Should be autumn now for sure, heck where did this heat wave come from?? It's probably safer to say, it's the end of the spring crop season. This season my green thumb was pointing me in the directions of tomatoes.


This Saturday, 22 May is the International Day for Biological Diversity. So I hope this post tempts people to get out there and try a heirloom.  

Mixed box of heirloom tomatoes from Eveleigh markets.

From my limited knowledge I'm guessing it's a Black Russian species. Can anyone confirm?

I've never grown my own tomatoes before but people were always telling me it was easy. Doing my own research on the internet it all sounded a bit daunting. Beware the descending swarms of aphids, don't shock the roots during planting, water daily or the fruits may split, keep the plant off the ground to avoid fungus, pinch the suckers, prune the plant to concentrate sugars to the fruit but don't prune it when you have fruits else you may get sunscald. arrrgh! The most helpful advice I got from one of these websites was this - 'just have a go'. So in that frame of mind I went to a nursery to pick up a plant.


Next challenge, which type of tomato to plant. Beefsteak, roma, plum, cherry tomatoes, the list went on and on. In the end i decided on a nursery branded plant which just said tomato plant on the label. Heck at only $2 for the pot what did I have to lose.

City of Jetties - South Australia

It's time again for Family Shanks to take another holiday. Our destination this time was semi-decided as we had already planned to visit friends that have moved to the city of churches/jetties. They call it the city of churches but where we were staying every suburb had a jetty with an adjoining Jetty Rd, hence my slant of the state's moniker.

MS.Glutamate, a former resident of the city of jetties gave me an extensive list to keep me busy. Due to time restraints and diet restrictions here's what I could rustle up...

Yiros - Sovlaki Brothers - Glenelg.

Forget Kebabs...there's no such thing in SA - it's all Greek baby!! And the Greeks make Yiros. Similar concept to kebabs using super tasty meat off the spit, only using a slightly thicker wrap. The one I had in Mykonos a couple of years ago had the whole happy meal in the Yiros, where the salad, meat and fries was all wrapped up together - yes it was a happy meal :)




















When seated I found it puzzling to find two massive holes in the middle of the table. I thought maybe cup holders for our drinks? but they took up valuable real estate on the dining area. All was revealed when our chips came out, served in cones.

Souvlaki Brothers' Lamb Souvlaki Salad & Yiros

The photos do this meal no justice as the salad and the yiros look like a messy pile of lettuce and meat. But it was a very tasty pile of salad and meat smothered in Souvlaki sauce - Yummo!!
The chips were freshly fried, super crispy and mighty tasty when dusted with chicken and herb salt.