Ah, magical Harris Park. While it's no secret this suburb is rich hunting ground for fans of Indian food (one of the best Lebanese delicatessans is in the area, too),  it never fails to keep on giving. Streets and streets of bright little cottages, most of which are restaurants, are hung with lights and the smell of toasted spices perfumes the air.

Even the train station wants to push you in the right direction – on one side, it's dark and lined with unlit apartments (insert howling coyote here). On the other, there's the warm glow of little lights twinkling all over the neighbourhood, like viewing a street party through binoculars. You could potentially have a different eating adventure every day for months on end here.    

So here's Coconut Grove – a new one for the area specialising in food from Southern India from chef Suresh Pillai, fresh from his time at London's Michelin-starred Gymkhana. From the outside, it's like Sunset Strip meets Marion Street with its whitewash walls and glowing lime green neon sign. Inside, interestingly, it's honky tonk music and red roses in stem glasses on every table. I don't exactly know what's going on here and I'm not convinced the owners do, either.

Still, what they lack in style, they make up for in taste. While there's definitely the opportunity to go big on curries and the like (and I highly suggest you do) there's a whole lot of small plate good times to discover from house-made cheese doused in a piquant chilli sauce with a generous amount of heat to pakhoras that, while crisp, haven't been fried to an inch of their life. Kingfisher beer's best friend.

Then there are the curries. Here, you're looking at low heat, but high intensity when it comes to flavour. "Egg roast" translates as chopped up boiled eggs caught in a thick, tamarind-heavy sauce. I dig it, but not as much as a Kerala-style pineapple curry, which I order as a side, and ends up being the table favourite. Bright, light and refreshing, hunklets of pineapple are bathed in a mustard-spiced coconut broth.

And is there ever a time a whole lot of duck, cooked down to an almost paste and redolent with the perfume of fresh baby curry leaves hidden under a perfect, soft rice pancake isn't a good idea? I think you know the answer.

Try this The pineapple curry is a dark horse. Order two.

Bottom line Pakhora ($10); Pineapple curry ($8); Duck dosa ($15)