Restaurant review: West end has a spicy secret

May 25 2011 By Juliet Eysenck, Fulham Chronicle

spicy secret rest

APOLOGIES to any regular customers of Tamarai because I am about to reveal one of the West End's best-kept secrets. The entrance to the pan-Asian restaurant was so unobtrusive we almost walked straight past it and even once we were inside, we were unsure we had come to the right place.

After walking through a series of long tunnels and down a set of stairs, we came to the 110-seat venue which metamorphoses from a fine-dining restaurant into a late-night bar and club from 10pm.

The menu recommended choosing several smaller dishes to share and a main course each but, given the vast selection, we preferred to try the chef's tasting menu (£52 per person) which features the restaurant's most popular creations.

The first dishes to come were chicken spring rolls with Chinese mustard aioli, smoked salmon thayar satham (curd rice), sweet chilli lotus root and pieces of crab with a masala mayonnaise and roasted coconut.

For me, the best was the sweet chilli lotus root, an unusual dish I had not tasted before but which I found deliciously sticky and crunchy.

Another surprise was the crab with masala mayonnaise, a flavour combination I had not tried but which went together beautifully.

For the main course, we had black tiger prawns with butter pepper garlic, and a Thai green curry with steamed jasmine rice.

The prawns were juicy and packed with flavour, while the Thai green curry was among the best I have ever tasted.

Although feeling pretty full by this point, we had a little room for dessert, a white chocolate semi freddo and seasonal fruit satay, which was the perfect end to the meal.

The Tamarai bar is open until 2am, Mondays to Thursdays, and the venue turns into a club from 10pm to 3am on Fridays and Saturdays.

Throughout May and June, the restaurant is offering half price mojito cocktails from 10pm to midnight.

TAMARAI, 167 Drury Lane, Covent Garden

020 7831 9399 reservations@tamarai.co.uk