Samosa. Burger. Those are the two most important words in this post, so I thought I’d better get them in first so you were forced to read them.
The Ultimate Samosa Burger is one of the exciting new dishes that’s just been added to the menu down at Scene Indian Street Kitchen. Last week we went down to the Spinningfields restaurant to try that and plenty else, this is what we found.
With Indian restaurants everywhere trying to spice up your curry experience with fresh ideas, the humble poppadom has taken a bit of a beating of late. Once an undeniably ubiquitous part of a traditional British curry, it’s dropped off the menu in a few places I’ve been to recently. I like those crispy fried discs as much as the next man, but I’m always game to nibble something new, so step forward Far Far Chokdi and Bhelpuri.
The first of the two is a crisp rice snack that looks a bit like a breakfast cereal but tastes great with your usual chutneys and dips, the second’s like a pimped out version of bombay mix, with the fresh flavours of pomegranate and coriander leaves tossed in.
Following those colourful treats we moved in to more traditional starter territory with the Chicken Shashlik. It was nicely tender and well seasoned, worth noting for the veggies out there you can also get paneer instead.
My picture of the samosa burger was, quite frankly, rubbish. The above one was taken by someone much more talented than myself, I think this thing deserves for you to see its best side.
The Ultimate Samosa Burger is available with or without chicken patties, either way it’s amazing. The crisp pastry element almost makes it closer to a pie barm than a burger – the fact that I mean that as a complement is probably a bit worrying, but at least I guess you can tell I’m a proper Northerner.
Our last pre-curry plate was a Chicken Dosa, I always think the best part of this dish is the coconut chutney and spicy dips that come alongside it, and these were particularly good ones – perfectly creamy and tangy.
There’s also a few extra curries on the new menu and we tried a couple. First the Goan King Prawn Curry which was nicely spiced with mustard seeds and curry leaves. It reminded me of something similar I had in Kerala which is just down the west coast from Goa in India. The lightness and fragrance of those ingredients worked really well with the seafood, it’s definitely a good shout if you want something with loads of flavour that isn’t too heavy and or mega hot.
Much richer in consistency was the Rada Chicken with lamb mince. It was definitely not something that caught my eye on the menu so hats off to our waiter Sam for recommending it because I think it was the favourite thing I ate all night. For me it combined the best elements of a meat curry with a chicken one, both flavour and texture wise, without feeling muddled.
So as you can see there’s loads more to try at Scene. There’s also a superfood section with some really tasty salads and grilled meats for that perfect post gym meal, you can probably pick out a kale salad hiding behind my prawn curry in the picture above.
I think it’s safe to say we were paying more attention to some of the other food on our table, but credit where it’s due it was a good salad. I think they might sell more of those samosa burgers though…
Scene, 4 A Leftbank, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3AN
0161 839 3929
www.scenedining.com
