The Times Magazine 61one of you doesn’t drink because he’s driving.
Just some handy budgeting ideas there for
those of you who endlessly whang on below
the line about all the money I spend.
When we arrived, bang on time, Cath was
already there, with a couple of those mates of
ours from the 1980s, snuggled into the plush
blue banquette in the window – a little close
for my liking to the next-door table of young
masters of the universe on a post-work bantz
session, but quite survivable. And the whole
thing here – aside from top-class cooking – is
intimacy and fun.
Abhi, resplendent in his pointed silver
beard and beautifully tailored tweed, brought
us bloody marys and cosmopolitans (cocktails
are one of his things), as well as a good
affordable white and a red and, for me
(because driving), just a delicious White
Rhino pale ale, poured into a fantastically
slender and delicate glass. I’m not saying an
inch-thick unsmashable litre flagon of Cobra
isn’t the best way to drink beer in the world.
But at my age, I’ll take a cold White Rhino in
posh glassware wherever possible.
Conical papads on phantasmagorically
shaped gold-coloured crockery came with
a shimmering, marmaladey mango chutney,
but there could have been more of them
(old habits die hard) than three between five.
Still, it left all the more room for a dazzling
procession of street-influenced starters
including golden, bouncing, crackling ghati
masala prawns, about a dozen of them,
yabbering with sesame, peanut, coconut
and chilli, drizzled at the table with a jug of
rich masala sauce.
Ram laddoo were deliciously cute
little lentil fritters, a chewy-crispy kind of
savoury Cadbury’s Mini Egg (ideal for the
run-up to Easter, which this was), slathered
in a pale green coriander chutney with
slices of pickled radish, and then there
were two “jackfruit tacos” (which our waiter
called “dhosas” with admirable literalness- driven, perhaps, by a desire to stay this
side of the cultural appropriation lynch
mob), which were served on a little gold
toast rack, just two of them, the fat dhosa
folded and filled with a “southern spiced”
jackfruit mix of rich, unctuous heft that
demanded no “I can’t believe it’s not
meat!” exclamations to earn its place
in, er, Curry Paradise.
Genuinely meaty, though, was the goat
shami kebab, a dense, howling puck of
rich braised goat meat (grown-up, gamey
goat, not squeaky kid) in a slick, buttery
(though butter-free) bone marrow sauce with
black cardamom and a big, folded paratha.
Like all the starters it was confidently, boldly
spicy – hot, hot, hot – in ways that super-
refined manifestations of the best Indian
food in London sometimes isn’t.
The paneer malai was two cardamom-
scented squares of melting cheese full of
toasty comfort (like little croque monsieurs),
but with a lean finish you don’t get from
gruyère; and soya chops with raw mango,
pickled onion and avocado were delightful
in their way, being rolled bean curd lightly
battered and deep-fried (following the
principle of your Chinese “vegetarian goose”)
but no substitute for, say, a lamb chop,
such as the two we had served charred
and steaming from the tandoor, with Indian
onion, cumin and mint.
Gosh, it went on and on, and so did we,
just like the old days in Paradise. There was
butter milk chicken, a seething methi murgh
of boneless thigh with fenugreek, crispy little
Sri Lankan pol rotis with grated fresh coconut,
and possibly the only dish of the night that
didn’t quite deliver on its promise, which was
the osso bucco – an almost brilliant twist on
the French bone-in veal shin classic (or in
this case, lamb), with its curry leaf and jaffna
spices. But they didn’t cook it for long enough.
You have to simmer that foreleg till it gives
up the ghost. The melted marrow fat was
there to be sucked from the bones, yes,
but the flesh was not quite tender enough yet,
and the connective tissue had not had time to
melt down to stickiness, remaining somewhat
elastic. But still delicious as all hell. And no
doubt the next one out of the kitchen was
perfect. Consistency is a bonus, but by no
means a condition of genius. For so much to
be so right, some things have to be wrong.
Like, for example, the garlic kheer (which
is a kind of rice pudding) we had for dessert.
“Garlic?” I asked the waiter. “Really?”
“It’s very subtle,” he replied.
So we ordered it and it came, and we tried
it and... it wasn’t all that subtle. Or, at least,
not subtle enough for me. The garlic was
definitely there, in the background, giggling.
In some ways, that was worse than if the
kheer had reeked to heaven like an aïoli. The
faint nag of allium in the distance had the
whiff of mistake. As if someone had stirred the
pudding with a spoon from our mains. Edgy
puds are fine, but this wasn’t for me.
“Yuk!” said Matt.
“Boak!” said Esther.
“Delicious!” said Matt’s wife, Sarah.
“I love it!”
And there, you see, is what happens
with genuinely interesting cooking: it divides
opinion. To achieve raptures in one mouth,
it sometimes has to bring a little mouth
sick into others. And if you don’t fancy it,
just make sure you end your meal with the
narangi chocolate pudding instead, which
is like licking the bowl round the back of
the Terry’s chocolate orange factory, and is
perhaps a surer way, after a meal like this, to
achieve paradise. nManthan
49 Maddox Street,
London W1
(020 7408 2258;
manthanmayfair.co.uk)
Cooking 9
Service 9
Garlic kheer 6
Score 8
Price £80/head
including booze