Messing with these well loved dishes in tough because you have to get it right and hit the right taste buttons. Also adding dishes which are unusual to British tastes to the menu makes it an even tougher challenge.

I am please to say Vishnu Natarajan the Executive Head Chef at  Carom and his team get it right! They describe themselves as ‘pan-Indian’ as they offer small plates of street food style food alongside the list of mains. But in truth they are more a contemporary Indian restaurant, as seen in their little twists and innovations.

Based in Wardour Street in the heart of Soho initial impressions were very good as the warm service and friendly faces made you instantly feel at home. It has a great vibe too, with modern décor and (non-cheesy) 80s music playing in the background, this is Indian food set to funky.

We sat down and ordered up a 3 pint pitcher of Kingfisher lager for the table and browed the menu. As I mentioned before they offer lots of small plates and I love that style of eating, so we picked 4 to start with.

I ordered up the hand dived king scallop cooked in the shell and the white crab puttu served with shrimp chutney. My partner went for the ‘desi’ BBQ paneer and vegetable potli with mint and tamarind chutney.

The crab puttu was delicious and had huge South Indian influence with its rich coconut based flavour. The shrimp chutney was really good and surprisingly sweet, they both worked well together.

The scallop arrived as promised in the shell, although it had been sealed shut with potato and baked. Breaking it open revealed the plump scallop surrounded bathed in sauce. It was an interesting mix of flavour but again worked well with the sweet scallop balancing the slightly sharp, sour flavour of the sauce.

The paneer was absolutely gorgeous with a great marinate and the right amount of charring to give it the perfect balance of flavour and texture. Hats off to them for making a classic this well.

The vegetable potli (a deep fried samosa like ball) were as to be expected from any vendor and lacked the pizzazz of the other dishes on the table. It was fine but seemed to lag behind the others in terms of flavour, but I guess it did live up to the title of ‘street food’.

As well finished the plates off there was a commotion at the next table, a fireball leapt into the air as a dish was flambéed. I tugged the waiter’s jacket and had to ask “what’s that?”

He told me so I ordered it. It was their gin-izzler – chicken tikka flambéed in gin! My partner was pretty full having had a naan with the small plates, so I was alone on this course so ordered a Carom’s ‘bukhara’ naan to go with the gin-izzler. It’s basically a keema naan only theirs ‘respected the Genghis Khan era’…sounds good!

When the chicken arrived and delivered to the table in its ball of fire the smells alone let me know I had made the right choice. Taking a bite the succulent slightly charred chicken was sublime and the botanicals from the gin really did make this something special. If you go to Carom then ordered it this dish!

The naan was unfortunately left lacking next to this dish. It didn’t have enough filling to get any flavour through the bread and the filling itself was slightly dry. I love keema naans and one of the main reasons is the moreish greasiness of the lamb filling. This simply didn’t have anything like that effect…I ended wishing I had just got a plain naan.

We ordered a dessert of sticky toffee pudding with cinnamon ice cream (seems my partner wasn’t full after all!). It was delicious and the ice cream was superb. After finishing the plate we both looked at each other and almost simultaneously said “there should have been cardamom in there”. Not that it need it’s just we both thought it would have worked really well. Still wonderful so no complaints!

Carom is a great restaurant with a cool, classy vibe and fantastic staff who were always attentive, knowledgeable and happy to serve. The food is top notch too and I would gladly go back for a few more of those small plates, and I will have to have that chicken again!

I had a great time a would highly recommend you check this out next time you in the West End, oh yes by the way the Kingfisher lager? Yes that hit the spot too

www.meza-soho.co.uk/at/

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Michael Robinson

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The Food Curator

The Food Curator (AKA Michael Robinson) is an aficionado of all things food and bon viveur based in London. A passion for cooking and dining has driven him to put fingers to keyboard to bring you his thoughts on the world of food. When not writing, eating or cooking he has a love of American muscle cars. Pop on over to my Facebook page and let's start a Facebook food revolution together: http://tinyurl.com/thefoodcurator

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