Kurumba Restaurant: Cuisines of Asia

Kurumba Restaurant is a pretty simple place. Medium restaurant, basically clean. Spacious between tables. Polite and helpful staff. Only two persons on when I went there on a Thursday night, and therefore sometimes service was a bit slow when they were cleaning up tables. Otherwise fine, and kitchen was pretty fast considering we were a party of 7.

Although this is in Port Moody, it was surprisingly not that hard to get to from a skytrain station -- the 97 B-Line from Lougheed Mall practically drops you outside.

Kurumba's menu has a great concept: Many of the not-too-expensive (like whole crab) popular dishes of various asian / south-east asian countries can be found in it. You have Chinese, Malaysian, Sri Lankan, Thai (What? Not India? Especially given the name Kurumba). Obviously not everything gets on the menu, but a really good selection of many recognizable items.

We tried a bunch of stuff, but here are just the things that I remember most clearly (remember that I do all this stuff undercover! -- generally no note-taking and no pics either).
Also, to be honest, I think we caught them on an off-day in the kitchen. Some stuff was... weird. But I'll get to that.

Sri Lankan Faluda Milkshake ($4.50)

• Whatever you are thinking this is, it's not what you think.
• Ice cream plus "red jelly" plus a bit of ice.
• Jelly is soft enough to be sucked up with the standard issue straw. No extra-wide bubble tea straw required.
• It's OK, especially at just $4.50.

Sri Lankan Hot Buttered Calamari ($14.95)

• Basically calamari tossed in a spicy mix involving butter and whole chillies.
• TIP: Do not eat the chillies. Well, you can if you want but watch out, they are quite bitter and very spicy-hot!
• Very salty.
• Did I mention this was very salty?

Thai Crispy Spring Rolls ($5 for 2 rolls) shrimp & pork rolls served with sweet Thai chilli sauce

• Oops. Forgot the sauce.
• Whole shrimps inside, which was probably the best part of this otherwise lacklustre item. Plus you can to dissect the roll to see the shrimps.
• Looked a bit oily. Also looked dark, which suggested they were slightly over-fried.

Roti Canai ($6.50) hand-made pan-grilled flat bread served with a curry dip

• Decidedly NOT oily to the touch, which is a plus.
• Surprisingly thick and not-very-crispy. Almost like a thin pancake. This was very odd. If you are looking for a great roti canai / roti prata, try Amay's House or Laksa King (used to be Bo Laksa King's Bubbles and Bits).
• Curry was quite tasty, though.
• Single very large piece.
• Two would be probably good enough for a meal.

Eggplant in Chilli Garlic Sauce ($13.95)

• Quite sweet, masking some of the underlying saltiness, with the result that this was both extremely sweet and salty at the same time.
• Otherwise quite tasty, though most of that is the sauce.
• According to one member of our party, this dish has considerably shrunk in portion (?).

Malaysian Beef Rendang ($12.95 small, $16.95 large) traditional Malay curry slow-simmered with lemongrass, shallots, lime leaves, galangal and spices

• Underlying "correct" flavour of beef rendang, but strangely pale grey. This MAY have been because we asked for everything to have spiciness toned down.

Overall... Food was passable to OK. Best item for me of everything we tried (and we also tried several other dishes) was the calamari, and that was very salty!

TIP: Order only ONE main for each of TWO persons, and add an order of rice. If your main is already noodles or rice, then throw in an appetizer like roti canai. This way, you can have a light to medium meal for BOTH persons with probably no leftovers and no waddling out of there over-full.
Food is, as mentioned, just OK, but price should then be under $20 for two persons. You might even get away with it just being $10-$15 per person, which is a pretty cheap dinner anywhere you go nowadays.

TIP: Don't fiddle around with the spiciness. This is generally a bad idea in any restaurant that doesn't let you choose it.