Let's take some chances with menus

We are very lucky here in Australia to have such a wide range of restaurants available to us. These days just about every suburban shopping strip will have a Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese and Italian restaurant, with Mexican, Spanish (Tapas) and Japanese establishments also common. All in all, you could say that the Australian dining scene is a United Nations of interesting cuisines vying for our attention.

What a shame though that just about every restaurant representing each particular cuisine has virtually the same menu. With a population of 1.7 billion (give or take a few hundred million) I refuse to believe that Indian food for example consists of only the two dozen or so staples that make it on the menu of my local Indian restaurant. And my sister's. And my parents' in Mudgee. And yours too, probably.

I was reminded of this last night when I grabbed a quick bite at Haiphong Harbour Vietnamese restaurant in Glebe before a show at the Seymour Centre. Haiphong Harbour is great value, with speedy, friendly service and a menu I could have pretty much recited without looking at it, even though I've never set foot in the place before. I'm not knocking at all but I know, from travelling in Vietnam apart from anything else, that there is much more to this wonderful cuisine than fried spring rolls, summer rolls, pho, sugar cane prawns, paw paw salad, lemon grass beef/pork/chicken etc...

There are of course exceptions to every rule - restaurants looking beyond the accepted "standards" of their cuisine to serve more interesting, authentic, regional dishes. Red Lantern (Vietnamese) and Spice I Am (Thai) are two personal favourites that spring to mind but I've found that these more innovative restaurants tend to position themselves at the higher end of the market. Certainly, Spice I Am didn't start off that way but it's second, Darlinghurst venue is decidedly more upmarket - and expensive - than the hole-in-the-wall Wentworth Avenue address.

So why aren't more restaurants serving more interesting, challenging national fare? Is it that, despite our obvious interest in trying international cuisines, Aussies aren't actually that adventurous when it comes to moving beyond the standards? Or is it that restaurateurs don't want to risk alienating punters by offering more adventurous dishes?

The answer is probably a little of both but isn't it time to try something different? Literally. I know that if a restaurant wants to throw out the challenge, I'll accept it happily.