Grace and Flavour: Trishna
Trishna
15-17 Blandford Street
W1
(020 7935 5624)
Living within foraging distance of Whitechapel's legendary New Tayyabs, where a table for two groaning with sizzling lamb, bubbling aloo gosht, sweet pis-tachio kulfi and heavenly keema naans sets one back £20, I hold little truck with high-end roti and rice purveyors like The Quilon or Chutney Mary. I wanted well-heeled Trishna in Marylebone - promising 'an innovative twist on the coastal cuisine of Southwest India' - to prove me wrong. Trishna serves delicate, unusual fare such as hariyali bream, duck seekh kebab, peri peri grouse, and a variety of rather tedious- sounding dishes, including 'Trishna fish & chips', 'broccoli & mushroom salad' and 'Dorset crab with garlic', which whisk me back to 1980s British 'curry houses' where the tables would be full of Brits too terrified to order curry.
Trishna was largely uninhabited and in need of cranking up the heating when I went for a weekend lunch. I ordered potato chat (chickpeas, tamarind, shallots, chilli), which arrived lukewarm. Balti Lord takeaway in East London can deliver food by moped from two miles away and it's piping hot. And I could taste reheated roast potato. No one can get that past me, I'm the queen of next-day Sunday dinner.
Chargrilled quail with sesame seeds was delicately spiced. A main course of roasted aubergine with tamarind, paneer and coriander arrived in neat parcels on a cold slate. Delicious but barely warm. A side of Hyderabadi dal, a basic lentil stew, was nice but forgettable. The seafood biryani was generous with cod and shrimp. I'm not exactly a MasterChef contender but I could probably cook most things on this menu without a recipe book.
The service was good, if a little comical. I entrusted the waiter to match each of the courses with booze. I say booze, not wine, as my chat arrived with Sauvignon, my aubergine with a massive glass of sherry, and my apple crumble (pre-made earlier that day, served stone cold) with a triple Amaretto. If the waiter's desired effect was to make me so pie-eyed I could challenge a wheelie bin to an arm wrestle, then, yes, the man deserves a Michelin head pat. I was really, really enjoying Trishna by the time I pinballed to the exit, after giving them £114. Funny that.
