INAMO

I had heard a lot about this new Pan Asian restaurant in Soho, which is supposedly the first ever, and maybe the only, interactive restaurant in the world. I looked up the menu online and liked what I saw, so decided to take my friend who was down in London for the weekend to Inamo. There wasn’t anyone at the doors to greet us, and it took a while for someone to show us how it all worked, but after a short demonstration, we didn’t have to call for a waiter until paying for the bill. Surprisingly there seemed to be as many waiters as there were customers.

The interactive menu was a little hard to navigate, and it was hard to compare dishes and prices. But the projection of your selected dish on your place mat was rather nice. Ordering food was really simple and reduces the time for indecisiveness. Whilst waiting for your food there were games to play, designs to pick for your table ambience, and even a chef cam. We were having so much fun with our interactive touchpad, we were surprised at how fast the food came out.

I ordered the Cinnamon Chicken with rice, my friend ordered the Black Faced Lamb which and rice, and we had the Crunchy Salad to share. The food was delicious. Like a lot of pan asian food, it was experimental and had some really interesting combinations like moromi miso and lamb.

Over all, it was reasonably priced (£50) between the two of us. We didn’t have space for dessert, but this was probably a good thing as all they had were ice-creams. I thought they would have some desserts which were equally as impressive as the rest of their menu.

souffle time!

i had a horrible nightmare the other day... i stood in my kitchen with all the ingredients to make a souffle. my egg yolks and whites were separated, and as i began to whisk my whites, i realised all i had to whisk them was a bent fork! Horror! I stood over my whites trying to beat them to stiff peaks, but i was getting no where. Nightmare. My souffle was a disaster! Baack to real life and the following day i was watching ready steady cook, and a french chef was making souffle. Right! i thought, this is too wired a coincidence, i have to make souffle just to prove to myself i can. I'd never made it before, but knew roughly what went in and how to make it. I had goats cheese in the fridge, eegs, milk, flour, butter and some cranberry sauce! perfect. so i set about making my souffle... came to whisk my egg whites and i broke out into a sweat... shit! no whisk... this is gonna be a failure! "look in the middle drawer," suggested my house mate. There in the middle drawer lye a sorry looking electrical whisk, with one half of the whisks missing. this won't work. but i had no other choice. I fiddled around with it for a bit and made the lone whisk rotate at a very slow rate. i stood over my egg whites a whisked and whisked.... nothing happened at first, and i felt a da ja vu coming on. "give it a while" my house mate encouraged.so i did, and slowly but surely my whites started to double in size... Beautiful! great stuff, so i made my goats cheese sauce, added the yolk and slowly added it to my white. This is meant to be the crucial stage.. but it was a breeze. i filled my butter and parmesan coated ramekins and put it in the oven for 20 mins. 20 mins later, i had 6 lovely, fluffy and well risen souffles. Put some cranberry sauce on it and voila! They were very yummy. So ever since, i can't stop! i've been making camembert souffle, which is my personal favourite. Next i want to try to make a lactose free souffle with cauliflower and broccoli souffle using rice milk for lactose free friend who would otherwise never get to try souffle in her life. this is not acceptable.