A sit-down restaurant/cafe-style meal at Chatkora’s will have to wait, it seems, another couple of months.

But they ARE using the real-deal kitchen out the back – and maybe that’s the reason our Sunday lunch there is the best ever Chatkora’s feed we’ve enjoyed.

The staff being freed, after all, from the confines of the truck now parked out the back at Unit 4, 45 Leakes Road, Laverton North.

Or maybe the Chatkora’s Indian street food is simply very, very excellent.

Which it is.

Our latest visit is an opportunity to reflect on how this eating house has become such a charming, yummy part of our lives.

We do it for weekend lunches – when the roads involved are pretty much free of the industrial-strength traffic that chokes them on week days.

And even, I suspect, week nights.

It’s a sweet weekend romp – along Geelong Road, Grieve Parade, Dohertys Road, Foundation Road and then back a wee ways on Leakes Road, thus avoiding any potential bottle necks associated with Lavo Market.

No in-house seating/tables? No problem – we’re happy to prop at the rear end of our car, it’s dusty boot acting as a table.

My choice this time is Old Delhi matar kulcha ($16.95, top photo).

It is a riot of flavour/texture explosions and supremely enjoyable.

The raita is studded with puffed rice.

The matar curry is wonderful – and made using, maybe, yellow split peas; as opposed to the chick peas that feature in several other Chatkora’s dishes.

The flatbread – kulcha – is quite different from most other Indian flatbreads in that it is leavened. It is a little fluffy and all crash hot.

As with my lunch selection, a key component of Bennie’s pav bhaji ($16.99) are the two kinds of red onion – raw chpped chips and pickled strands – which seal the deal on texture.

Pav bhaji can be eaten as a kind-of burger, with the thick veg curry gravy slathered between the soft buns/pav.

Or eaten in the usual curry-with-flatbread style, as Bennie does.

Chatkora’s – go on, make that drive.

See earlier story here.

Chatkora’s is open Tuesday-Sunday.