AQUA FOOD AND MOOD - Warwick

12-14 Jury Street
Warwick
CV34 4EW


www.aqua-food-mood.co.uk


This was my first visit to Warwick and i found that most of the decent sounding restaurants were quite pricey so when i read that there was a Lebanese restaurant in the town which sounded fairly reasonable i decided to give it a go. Also i am a very big fan of Lebanese and mezze food so i was quite excited about the prospect of eating here.

When we arrived at the restaurant on a Saturday night to see there was only one table of people in there we were a little hesitant as i like there to be a bit of an atmosphere. Once we were seated it didn't take long before the restaurant began to fill up, which made me relax more.

The choice of starters on the menu was fairly long with a good range of hot and cold dishes on offer. Not wanting to fill up to much before our main meals, we ordered a starter of mixed dips and bread. Consisting of humous, broad bean dip and baba ganoush. 

When it arrived it seemed quite small, i did think they could have been a bit more generous with the portion sizes of each dip. However, the humous was very good, nice and thick and rich. The baba ganoush was also very nice and had a great smokey flavour and the bread was very nice and fresh tasting. The disappointment came with the supposed broad bean dip, with no broad beans in sight just a few borlotti beans in a murky looking brown sauce which tasted like it had come out of a tin.

On to the mains, we ordered whole grilled baby chicken with garlic sauce, and a lamb and okra stew. The dishes looked very appetizing on arrival and were decently sized. The chicken tasted very good and was grilled very well so it had that lovely charred bbq taste. However, the supposed garlic sauce was just a small ramekin of what resembled garlic mayonaise. It came with rice and a small salad, although the rice didn't have that nice buttery texture that i would expect, it was just plain boiled basmati rice with a few herbs sprinkled on.

The lamb and okra stew was quite an average dish, the lamb was a bit chewy and the sauce tasted quite acidic, and didn't have a rich enough taste of the tomato. I think this was probably because it hadn't been cooked for long enough to get that rich slow cooked taste. 

The meal came to £34 including service. All in all this was a fairly decent place, and for somewhere small like Warwick i am sure it offers a refreshing change to chain restaurants and overpriced gastropubs. However it just didn't quite excel in the kitchen enough to make me want to go back.

Yes yes LONDON again...

Mosob

339 Harrow Road

London

W9 3RB

www.mosob.co.uk

The restaurant was very quiet when we arrived, but it was still quite early on a Sunday evening so i hoped that more people would arrive to liven up the atmosphere. We were given a very warm welcome by one member of staff, who it turned out as the evening went on was the owner of the restaurant. I have eaten African food before but as there was so many dishes to choose from we decided to go for the 'Adi Ugri' lamb, beef and vegetable platter for two.

First to arrive was the starter of spinach and Timitimo injera rolls served with yogurt and Awaze chilli paste

I really liked the rolls, but i felt that they could have been a little more generous with the amount of filling. The lentils were midly spiced and went well with the accompanying chilli paste and cooling yogurt. But it was the spinach roll that came out as the favourite, really simple but the flavours of the spinach were very good.

While we were waiting for the main meal to arrive, the owner proceeded to show us a well thumbed book filled with the Eritrean architecture. I thought it was a nice touch that he wanted his customers to feel at home and provide them with an understanding of the culture from which had led him to open up his restaurant.

Our platter arrived and was placed between us in the traditional way. A stainless steel plate covered completely with a large injera bread. On top sat our dishes of meat and vegetable stews. 

Our platter consisted of....

'Quluwa'- Cubes of lamb with green chillies and tomato

'Minchetabish'- Spicy minced beef stew with boiled eggs

'Hamli' - Spinach cooked with garlic and

'Kik Alicha' - Split peas with tumeric and basil

We tore pieces of the spongey Injera and used it to scoop up mouthfuls of food. The minced beef stew was very rich and thick with tomato, I couldn't detect any egg in there as stated on the menu so i was a little disappointed. The lamb in the 'Quluwa' stew was a bit chewy, and it didn't have any particular standout flavours. I though that both vegetable dishes, particularly the lentil dish which was nicely flavoured with tumeric and worked really well with these particular meat dishes and also with the sourness of the bread. 

Total price £28.

Cay Tre

301 Old Street

London

EC1V 9LA

www.vietnemesekitchen.co.uk

 'Saigon Xeo Pancake'

I really enjoyed the mix of light crispy pancake,combined with the fresh fragrant herbs, and the  generous filling of juicy prawns, chicken and bean sprouts. The lettuce also provided another fresh texture, used to help scoop up chunks of the pancake. The little dish of nuoc cham spiced fish sauce was an ideal accompaniment which injected the dish with anthor big flavour.

'Lotus Stem Salad'

Less enjoyable was the lotus stem salad, served with prawn crackers which i am not a fan of. The positives about this dish were that the prawns were big and juicy, and it had a really nice level of heat and acidity to it from the fresh red chilli and lime juice.i also enjoyed the crunch from the roasted peanuts sitting on the top. The downsides were that the lotus stem was just too stringy and tasted quite sour, and i also found some of the herbs used in the dish a bit overpowering.

'Green mango seabass'

This was my favourite dish, and probably the most simple in terms of ingredients and presentation. Lovely crisply fried seabass, in a delicate, fragrant fish sauce topped with super fine shredded green mango and chilli.

'Cassava Mien'

Not a show stopper of a dish but tasty nevertheless, this dish of cassava vermicelli with crab and tiger prawns had a good combination of textures from the crisp fried vermicelli and fresh beansprouts and was generously topped with large prawns and soft crab meat. I enjoyed the dish but i think there were probably more standout dishes to be found on the menu. 

Total price including one pot of Jasmine tea and steamed rice £37.97

The best Italian meatballs in the world....

Courtesy of my wonderful Nanna Rosa.