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Touch of Kerala

By Saskia Little-Brown

Church Street has long been blessed with two outstanding Keralan restaurants offering the distinctive cuisine of South India: the Paris Hilton pink Rasa franchise and the rather more retiring Abi Ruchi – less eye-ball searing, perhaps, but in its modest way, just as pretty. If you like lilac. And very low wattage lights.

Décor apart, Abi Ruchi’s competitively priced new lunch menu merited sampling on an otherwise dismal Sunday: £4.50 for a vegetarian main, £5.95 for the carnivore/fish selection (adding a starter sinks only a very little deeper into the customer’s pocket, at £5.95 for the veggi two-course, £7.50 for the non-veggie equivalent). Budgetary constraints – or prudence as our Gordon might have it – had restricted our choice to a main each, but with the Husband’s hunger pangs in evidence, we were very thoughtfully supplied with an additional dish of parippu vada: fried crunchy lentil patties with coconut chutney. A little bland, perhaps, but they staunched the remaining stomach rumbles and allowed a more dignified silence to descend, if only briefly.

For mains, the Husband opted for chemeen curry – a tasteful and tasty prawn curry. It arrived on a stainless steel serving contraption that might have looked more at home in an obstetrician’s surgery, but beautifully presented and jauntily embellished with a judiciously positioned poppadum. Presentation isn’t everything – but Abi Ruchi are clearly trying hard. A very generous mound of perfectly cooked basmati (rather annoyingly, far better cooked than my own domestic efforts), was accompanied by a large bowl of prawns swimming in a delicately flavoured coconut milk, mango and spice sauce. The chef’s side dish on the day offered white cabbage, carrot and grated coconut stir-fried with mustard seeds and coriander. The Husband ate this with such relish that he may not have realised it was vegetable based. No matter – it was fresh, and possibly the heathiest thing he’d eaten all week.

Never the most adventurous chomper in the neighbourhood, I opted for a chicken dish that was new to me: chicken malabar, also featuring a beautifully smooth, roasted coconut sauce (which gave the dish a deliciously silky texture), spices and herbs, the chef’s side vegetable dish, an impossibly butch portion of basmati rice and the ubiquitous poppadum, set at a jaunty angle.

A basic house white added very little to the overall bill, for a special that provided just what was required for a languid Sunday lunch: a pared down but well-selected choice of lunch specials, flavoursome, very fresh, delicately spiced, and utterly satisfying.

(Worth noting too, for the frenetic weeks ahead: Abi Ruchi’s innovative half-price happy hour, Sunday to Thursday from 6.30 to 7.30, with samosas, a range of classic dosa dishes, cutlets, dumplings, pakoras and soups. Now just how good would that be after a traumatic bendybus journey? And no washing up…)

Abi Ruchi, 42 Stoke Newington Church Street, N16 0LU
Tel: 020 7923 4564
Open Mon-Sat 12-3; Mon to Thurs, 6-11 ; 6-12, Fri to Sat; 1-10.30 Sun. Takeaway also available.

Sea Cow

By Richard Boon

Don’t expect Manatee steaks with your chips at Church Street’s newly opened restaurant, nor Swordfish, Bluefin Tuna, Monkfish or Marlin. They’re big on vulnerable species…

Keen to continue our conversation about typefaces and the relative merits of Bembo and Baskerville, my companion The Professor and I selected to sample the Sea Cow’s fare on one of its first few days of operation. We would, perforce, have to make allowances for teething troubles. We went just after they opened and the heating wasn't working properly, nor, more importantly, was the coffee machine. And The Prof does so like an espresso doppio after his skate and chips.

The variety of fish is sourced globally and claims awareness of preserving fish stocks. The Haddock is from the North Sea, but they only use line-caught Cod from the Western English Channel, farmed Sea Bass from Greece, Tuna from sustainable stocks in the Western Pacific, Gilthead Bream from Greece, Mahi-mahi (whassat?) from sustainable sources in the Pacific, and, finally, Red Snapper from Brazil.

As The Professor observed, ‘All this ecological consciousness is great, but the latest trend among the aware, chattering classes is the polluting effects of long-distance air travel. So Snappers and stuff being flown in from around the world to Stokey airport might now be considered a bit uncool.’ But, then, he does have a thing about carbon-emission conscientious objectors wheeling down Church Street, their cast-iron buggies made by some of the world’s leading manufacturers of SUVs, like Jeep, to name but one.

That aside, the Sea Cow is family friendly, with children’s portions at affordable, if not pocket-money, prices. No parking spaces, however.

On to the food. The Prof’s steamed Tiger Prawns (from Brazil!) were reasonably fresh and accompanied by a reasonable mayonnaise. He then deliberately chose the fishcakes, feeling this would be a test of whether they could cook at all. These were interesting: definitely not your usual breaded exterior with potato goo in the middle. They had chunks of fish and herbs. He liked them at the time but afterwards complained of rather a lingering taste occasioned by too much garlic and salt (‘farmed from ecologically sustainable salt beds no doubt’, he grumbled).

My own preferred starter, Whitebait, was off, so I went straight for battered Haddock, cooked to perfection, firm flakes of fish with sufficient bite and moisture, its accompaniment of a single portion of minted mushy peas being ample for the two of us. We selected the house recommendation of a New Zealand Farleigh Estate Sauvignon Blanc, which was actually rather too sweet for both our likings. Our settlement of £40 including service was very good for two, especially with £15 of that being the wine.

We passed through the busy take-away station with its attractive display cabinet of the variety of fish on sale at the front – the Professor remarking that seeing a case full of ready fillets rather undermined its whole purpose of showing patrons you have really fresh fish – to further our discussion of favourite serif forms into the night, substantially satisfied by our repast, both agreeing that the Sea Cow was a welcome addition to the neighbourhood’s diners.

Sea Cow, xxx Stoke Newington Church Street, N16 Tel: 020 xxxx xxxx