After a week of indulgence in Spain, I was very much looking forward to getting back into ‘clean’ food, so Scene’s latest event invitation could not have come at a better time.
On the 27th September, Spinningfields’ only Indian restaurant had planned a press launch to showcase their new menu, with a special focus on healthy choices and super-foods.
I decided to drag along my personal diet and lifestyle guru (aka baby sister) to join me as my plus one for the evening and we headed over after work and settled down in the ever so familiar surroundings. As we waited for the tables to fill up, we tucked straight into our pappadoms and dips and excitedly looked over tonight’s menu.
The evening kicked-off with the lovely Emaan, Scene’s Marketing Director, talking us through their inspiration for this new venture. For those who haven’t visited before, the whole concept of Scene is based on street food. With a lot of hard work from a team of experts, the new menu has been developed to be heavily ‘taste’ focused and pulls in the use of flavours from all over India.
During the night, we also heard from Executive Chef, Sudesh Singh and popular Celebrity Nutritionist, Jeannette Jackson, who both explained how they planned to lead the way in healthy eating, by upping the use of protein combined with low carb, nutrient rich sides.
Mo and I often argue about the benefits of Indian food. Indian food does get a bad rep – oily, greasy, full of fat and cream – all things you hear regularly when curry comes up. Indian spices themselves have incredible medicinal and well-being properties but most restaurants and takeaways combine them with such unhealthy ingredients and cooking methods which completely negate any benefit. So, to finally have somewhere that recognises the need to create wholesome meals, with the impactful flavours of India, was refreshing (and about time really).
First course, I’m going to go all out and say what I was thinking – it was a bad idea… A really bad, bad idea. Why? Because it was DELICIOUS. It really set the bar high for the rest on the night. When you read carrot and coriander soup, I know in my head that doesn’t set off any exciting ‘can’t wait to eat it’ alarm bells. But you will not find a soup with this kind of spice kick and quality, believe me.
It was closely followed by a whole table full of treats: Chicken 65, Lucknowi chicken wings, chicken pakora, paneer pakora and potato and mint chaat. The pakora were distinct in taste and I loved the chilli sauce drizzled on top. The pastry was also nice and light, although I’m not a massive fan of paneer (personal preference). Chaat has always been one of my favourite indian dishes and with the inclusion of potato and pomegranate, I could easily have had that as my main.
After devouring nearly everything that had landed, it dawned on us that these were the starters. At which point we both realised that we had not strategically planned stomach space to fit all the dishes in and somewhere in between mouthfuls of chaat, I started to feel really full.
In moments like this, us bloggers and tasting folk, well we just have to suck it up and power through.
Onto the mains.
Spiced grill chicken, lime infused quinoa with cranberries and pomegranate, kale and beetroot with spiced orange salad, rada chicken and lamb, daal Punjabi and finally chicken biryani. The salad and in some cases fruit accompaniments complimented each dish perfectly, balancing sweet and savoury tastes in an original way. With each dish we enjoyed picking out the distinct notes, the bursts of spice, some of which reminded us once again of home.
Just as we got to the point where I was going to have to be rolled home (I obviously didn’t get the portion control memo when trying to eat healthy), our saviour G, joined us to enjoy the last few parts of the meal and made sure none of this good food went to waste.
All in all we had a wonderful evening. I got to spend some time with my favourite people, at one of my favourite restaurants and most importantly, enjoyed a tasty guilt-free meal. What more could a blogger ask for?
Thank you to Scene for inviting us to taste the new menu, which is now up and running so be sure to check it out! As always all opinions and foodie thoughts are my own.
