Sugar and spice...

The wait was over as we headed to the Cinnamon Soho on Sunday for Ma Toast's 60th birthday celebrations. The double whammy for me was also the drinks on the outdoor balcony at the oxo Tower, but I will get to that.


The Cinnamon Soho is one of Vivek Singh's brainchild's, following on from his hugely successful Cinnamon Club and Cinnamon Kitchen. It is described as their 'younger and cheekier sibling'. The former two are a bit more expensive and I tend to keep these for special occasions being fine dining. Not that ma Toast's birthday isn't special, but sadly, the Cinnamon Club is not open on Sundays. So, it was off to what promised to be the more relaxed and fun Cinnamon restaurant.


As it happened, we went on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year (so far). We arrived and the restaurant was fairly quiet for Sunday lunchtime. We (Pa Toast owns an Indian restaurant) tend to find that people don’t want to eat Indian food when it’s hot, which is weird because spicy food, like tea is consumed in hot countries because it helps cool you down, i.e. sweat.


Anyway, we reviewed the lunch menu, which is all that is on offer on a Sunday and started with two courses for the bargain price of £15. Ma Toast and I went for the vegetarian papdi chat which was a refreshing and tangy explosion of flavours and textures. The crunchy gram flour sev against the light yoghurt and sweet-sour tamarind chutney. It was well done, just like mum makes, although she was telling me the ways in which it was different (read inferior) to hers.
 

Brother Toast went for the interesting combination of flavours of mackerel with an apple and fennel raita, whilst Gipsy Spread had the tandoori chicken salad with toasted melon seeds.

 

 

The vegetarian main course sounded interesting to me;a chargrilled broccoli malai with almonds and rose petals. I wasn’t sure if the broccoli was going to be pureed with flaked almonds through it. What I received was some delicately spiced broccoli on a bed of puréed spiced spinach (I’m guessing this is the malai?) covered with a creamy/cheesy sauce (or was this the malai?). I was also unable to identify the almond in the dish. Regardless, I had not had anything like it before and it was very tasty. We ordered sides of masala mash, garlic nan and potato paratha for us to share. These were also very tasty.

 

 

Gipsy spread had the pan seared coley with tomato and lime sauce.

By the end, none of us had room for any dessert. I did like the food and the service was excellent, but on the day that we went, I felt the atmosphere was lacking. I think I would like to go again, perhaps for dinner on a Saturday night to get a better feel for it.

You can view the menu here http://www.cinnamon-kitchen.com/Soho-Home