Bhang serves up Indian food and cool Brunswick delight
WHILE cranes dot the Sydney Rd skyline, it’s still going to take some time to knock the grit out of Brunswick. But they’re giving it a red-hot go at Bhang.
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“WE don’t sell bhang”.
This might seem a curious statement on the bar board downstairs at Bhang, a funky new Indian restaurant in Brunswick.
Curious, that is, unless you spent your 20s searching for enlightenment while drinking bhang lassi by the Ganges. Because then you’d know that not selling bhang is, certainly in the eyes of our law, the bang on thing to do.
Used throughout India for centuries as part of medical and spiritual practice, this edible form of cannabis has, for many travellers, been as much a part of their subcontinental adventure as the Taj Mahal and dysentery.
But bhang or no, this Bhang smashes the munchies out of the park.
A plate of super crunchy, finely battered spinach chaat is a completely delicious snack ($12) and, when teamed with a $8 happy hour pint of Rover session ale from Hawkers up the road, you have a one-two winner that could both be all you came here for or the beginning to a full Indian feast.
That feast will be served on the first floor of a handsomely reappropriated funeral home, given new life by the team from one of Brunswick’s best loved eateries, Tom Phat.
For more than a decade Tom Phat has served funked up SE Asian hits that require little thinking to a crowd decked out in Savers chic. Now Bhang does the same with India’s greatest and gives them the same slightly gentrified twist.
While cranes dot the Sydney Rd skyline and apartments replace warehouses apace, it’s still going to take some time to knock the grit out of Brunswick.
But they’re giving it a red-hot go at this two-level space up the Coburg end, where the downstairs bar is all Bollywood posters, dim lights, fresh flowers and a Brunswick-hip soundtrack, while upstairs hanging greenery softens the exposed brick walls with a resplendent peacock overseeing all from the rafters.
It’s cool without being affected, and with such sweet lovely staff who quietly know their stuff it is easy to get caught up in Bhang’s easy charms.
Such as a plate piled high with soft shell crab bhaji that’s another eminently smashable snack, especially with the drizzle of chilli sauce and a lurid curry leaf mayo across ($12). Again, great beer food that could be teamed with a $7.50 can of Kingfisher or Brunswick Bitter for two hands of happy.
A range of “Little Frankies” – open naan wraps that are a staple street food in Mumbai – are offered. Like a puffy bready taco, the chicken tikka version came topped with tender meaty cubes and a coriander and onion salad. It’s a fun, tasty little filler that will make for a great late-night sopper-upper that comes with less guilt than a kebab ($9.50). It’s the perfect snack to eat in the bar, where a good line in suitably on-theme cocktails with a subcontinental lilt is being shaken. Such as a blueberry-and-cinnamon infused rye that’s the base for a twisted old fashioned ($19) – though splitting the ice ball in half defeats its purpose.
From the oven, two tandoor lamb cutlets are very good, meaty and full of flavour, but at $18, expensive. Likewise the four tasty pieces of tandoor chicken for $20. The accompanying sauces for both, while excellent, didn’t match the menu – tamarind yoghurt was served with the lamb instead of the advertised yoghurt curry; a beetroot raita instead of the promised cucumber and mint with the chicken.
But these sauces were more deftly executed than the gravy with the curries tried. Though generous with chunks of pork, the Goan “balichao do porco” lacked the expected shrimp and tamarind layers of flavour, subbing them out for heat ($17), while salt drowned out any nuance in the lamb neck curry ($18). The thin, crisp, garlic naan, however, is excellent ($4).
FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS: WHAT IS DIWALI?
I liked the crisp-skinned duck that comes swimming in warming peri peri sauce, but the sauce-to-meat ratio in our dish was a bit out of whack; at $26 it needed more quack.
A dum biryani served as a pastry-topped pie is another great idea, and, once you picked out the whole cloves and avoided the cardamom pods, the rice had lovely flavours – though the advertised paneer seemed MIA and our dish would have been better if made with basmati rice ($18).
The syrupy, sticky soft dumplings that make up the gulab jamun, served under a tumble of almond slivers, crushed pistachio and a scoop of beautifully balanced cardamom ice cream, are a sweet finale ($12).
Yes, you’ll find more authentic and better executed Indian up and down Sydney Rd, but if you want to swap those bright flouro lights for cool Brunswick delight – with some and cracking wine – Bhang is your target.
Bhang
2A Mitchell St, Brunswick
Ph: 9383 2488
Open: Tues-Sun from 5pm
Go-to dish: Little Frankies
Rating: 13.5/20
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