2019
East meets West
That can only mean one thing! It is Curry and Quiz Night next week. Actually it means a little more than that in terms of how I approach the food we offer in the restaurant. I am sure that some of you will have noticed that there are often dishes on the menu from the Middle East, the eastern end of the Mediterranean as well as from the diverse cuisines of the Far East. I am fascinated by the variety of styles of cooking, the amazing range of ingredients, and the constant flow of interesting writers and practitioners of culinary arts that we have access to in the UK. Within all of this I have to work out how to work with those cuisines in a practical way within the confines of a small kitchen with a comparatively low turnover of customers. It does not stop me from looking!
On a recent flight back from Boston with Helen’s aunt in tow, I spent a couple of hours perusing the new book, East, from Meera Sodha, born in Lincolnshire to Ugandan Indian parents (seen in the Guardian on a weekly basis with her column on vegan food, although she herself is not a vegan). It is a fascinating study of vegetarian dishes from all over the Far East, but principally from India. I am so taken by it that I am tempted to only present vegetarian dishes at next week’s Curry and Quiz Night………I am still thinking about it! If I do so, I can assure you that you will be pleasantly surprised.
On the menu at the moment, I have an adaptation of one of her dishes based on a South Indian tomato curry which is proving to be very popular. Cooked in a tamarind and coconut sauce, served on a freshly cooked puri, it gives a delicious sweet and sour finish to the last of the season’s tomatoes. I am working on a new lamb dish this week as well as an interesting dish from Marcus Wareing (he of Masterchef, the Professionals) which uses goyza wrappers to make ravioli. I managed to find some of these thin wrappers in an Asian supermarket on my way back from Heathrow. If anyone knows where to find them in Cornwall, I would love to know!
We are now open from Thursday to Saturday each week. We will also be open on Sunday 29th December and have a large party booked already on that date, so please bear that date in mind if you have family down for Christmas. We will be closed for the month of January 2020, re-opening on Thursday 30th.
We have a few tables available this weekend, so please pop in or give us a ring.
Hope to see you all soon
Mike & Nigel and the team.