Sunday 8 March 2015

Follow the Yellow, Blue, Green & Red Brick Road - Festival of Holi at Cinnamon Kitchen

Holi is the Indian festival of colour. Cinnamon Kitchen, Vivek Singh's restaurant just a stone's throw from Liverpool Street Station is celebrating it big time.  They have a special arena where participants dress in protective clothing and start throwing coloured powder at each other.

It was colour carnage! You book a 30 minute session and just get your friends and fellow participants covered in colour.
Cinnamon Kitchen will be celebrating Holi until 14 March 2015 as well as getting plastered in colour (optional by the way) they have a special Holi Festival of Colours menu.
Mr R and I were invited to try the Holi menu out. This menu will be available until the 14th March at £30.00 per person and includes tea or coffee and petit fours at the end of the meal.
Mr R picked which red wine he wanted but our waiter politely suggested a different one that would compliment our food even better.  We like this and his suggestion was perfect, a red Portugese, full bodied wine.
While we waited for our starters the Chef sent out a little 'amuse bouche' for us. Little pieces of chickpea cake with a tamarind sauce and on a bed of yoghurt.
We both had the same starter although often we try to have different ones to get to taste a larger selection.  'Bhaditraka' or grilled Kentish lamb escalopes with black stone flower and smoked paprika raita.  The lamb was tender with just the right amount of pink inside.  The green coriander relish had a heat and explosion of lovely flavours in your mouth.
Another little morsel while we waited. A little crispy, deep fried pillow made with chick peas with curry sauce and grated chickpea.
Our 'Rest Course' a 'Thandai' sorbet. I have never had anything like this, sweet and cool but peppery and refreshing at the same time.
I wanted the 'Jhinga malai curry' - King prawns in coconut & cardamon curry with ghee rice.  This was sublime, a touch of warmth in your mouth but never conflicting with the amazing taste of the sauce and the tender (and huge) king prawns. I could eat this on a daily basis!
Mr R fancied the vegetarian option; 'Khumb sarson ka saag' in other words Tandoori mushroom with mustard greens and chickpea bread.
A Selection of Indian Holi sweets; Carrot samosa (really crispy and fresh), pistachio burfi and fig and semolina halwa.  My favourite was the carrot samosa but Mr R raved about the pistachio burfi.

Mr R said of his meal .......
"I would like to confirm that the flavours of the courses we had were very tasty for a person who doesn't like very hot curries these were full of flavour and the whole meal experience was very professional.  Would I recommend a visit? Yes. With the added bonus that it is so close to Liverpool Street Station making travelling to the restaurant very easy.

I have to say the Holi paint options looked far too messy for me but it appeared that many people were enjoying themselves as well."......................

I was a guest of Cinnamon Kitchen and was not paid to write a positive review.  As always all opinions are mine and that of my guest. All photos are my own.

6 comments:

  1. I love an adventurous curry. Sounds like my kind of place!

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    1. Definitely worth a visit - I loved my king prawns!

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  2. Looks like fun. You should have joined in Mr R :)

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    1. It was a bit too messy but I liked watching the others!

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  3. Haha, you opted out of the Holi paint then Heidi - I think I would have done too ;-)

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  4. It was really full of young people throwing paint at their friends - I was happy to watch and record the preceedings!!

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