Curry Love is a Thai curry take-out spot on College across the street from Bellevue Avenue. They operate on an assembly line concept that takes the authentic Thai flavours of the owners' childhood and allows you to mix and match their favourite ingredients and sides to create a lovely, personalized bowl of curry.

One half of the husband-and-wife team that owns Curry Love, Moe was born into a large family in Thailand where everyone had designated chores. When he was just eight years old, the role of cooking fell to him, and he's never turned back. He makes each curry at the beginning of every day from scratch.

The base price for all of Curry Love's creations is $8.99, which includes one side, one meat, one curry and toppings. Toppings like egg and mango salad are a dollar or two extra.

There are about eight standard toppings with more that rotate fresh daily. You can get a double side or extra topping at an additional cost. There's also a kids' menu that starts at $4.99.

We try the green curry with beef, and the yellow curry with chicken. They're mild enough to suit average Canadian tastes, but flavourful. This experience is really all about the customizability, which means that you can make your meal a healthier option than most takeout.

Instead of grabbing street meat, poutine, or one of the other fat-laden options around the College and Spadina area, you can choose brown rice to have with curry and load it up with edamame, broccoli, carrots, papaya, and any other healthy delights of their choosing.

We also try the cinnamon tofu with thick curry (which contains peanuts). The "cinnamon" element basically changes the tofu from what you throw in the pan and puzzle over when it turns out bland to what you expect when ordering tofu: it's crispy, complex, and rich.

Though curry gets all the love here, the sides are no joke. Spring rolls are peppery and piping hot for only $1.50. Four sauces are freely available, including a spicy and sour, spicy fish sauce, and a yummy spicy tamarind sauce.

Curry Love makes their own authentic Thai soda, one of which is a sweet and brilliantly purple version made from the butterfly pea flower. It and its partner, a monkey apple and roselle drink, are both sweetened exclusively with honey. This is soda and takeout that's actually good for you.

Photos by Jesse Milns