Let waiter guide you on a tasty adventure

Written by Greedy Gannet @ East End Life Thursday, 18 September 2008 11:34

As the school holidays were drawing to a close, my husband and I decided to take our girls out for a meal before they got back into the routine of school and work.

We headed to Spitalfields after work on a Friday wanting to see what was available in the Bishops Square area, but on the way a tiny place off Commercial Street caught our eye.

We clocked it as an interesting place to investigate but wandered on up to Spitalfields just to see what was there.

While Bishops Square is great to sit and people-watch, we were after something a bit more intimate so we headed back down the road to Whites Row.

There was the purple sign of Herb & Spice that we had spotted earlier, tucked away at the bottom of one of the old, tall buildings characteristic of the area.

It was a bit of a Tardis moment as, once inside, the restaurant is quite spacious and simplistically modern, attractively decorated with wooden floors, and large floor-to-ceiling windows

It seemed very quiet and the waiter explained it would usually be busy with people from the City but many were on holiday. We weren’t sorry as that meant we would get served quickly and we were all hungry.

We looked over the menu and made our choices – but the waiter wasn’t having any of it.

My older daughter had chosen chicken tikka, her favourite, but the waiter said it was time she tried something more interesting and would get the chef to make her a similar dish with chicken that she would also enjoy.

After checking she liked spinach, he moved on to the rest of us. I had decided on kasai ghosh while my husband opted for kadi ghosh, both lamb dishes, which we thought sounded tasty.

But once again we were over-ruled by the waiter. He said we should try something different so, although we got our lamb dishes, we weren’t quite sure what they were.

Nevertheless, they were both very delicious and obviously freshly made.

My daughter enjoyed her saag chicken even though the waiter had told us she didn’t have to pay if she didn’t like it. He is obviously used to pushing his customers just that little bit further into spicier flavours. Even the rices came with a few added extras!

The only one who got what she asked for was my 12-year-old, who tucked in happily to her chicken tikka masala.

All in all it was a tasty, if adventurous, evening, and I would certainly return, just to ask the waiter to choose our meals for us!

The total bill, including poppadums to start and drinks, came to £54.45.

Herb & Spice is at 11A Whites Row, off Commercial Street, E1. Tel. 7247 4050.