55-71 City Road
London EC1Y 1HQ
Tel: 0845 262 5262
Date of Last Visit: Oh my, sometime in January. During the week. For lunch.
The Victims: David, Chris
The Damage: Unknown!
Chris was in town so we took him out to lunch at the new place. Anakana had only been open about five weeks during our visit. We were maybe a trifle early for lunch–12:30ish?–but not too early. But dude we were the only people in there. That was weird. Because it’s a nice place. Cool furniture. Communal sitting. Interesting lighting. (More about lighting later!)
I feel like Anakana is in the wrong spot. It totally belongs in Hoxton Square, but where it is now (south of Old Street "traffic circle," as I like to call it), it’s just not going to get the foot traffic. It’s going to have to rely on word-of-mouth. And that’s hard because it’s not a residential area.
But I digress. So we sit down and the waitress tells us how this isn’t Indian food–it’s Indian street food. I don’t really know what that means, because there were samosas on the menu, and as long as there are samosas on the menu, I’m happy.
I was then served the world’s smallest diet coke. I have, if you can believe it, sworn off all diet coke going forward. This was after reading the article about Nutrasweet in the NY Times the other week. It eerily echoed my mother’s premonition that Nutrasweet will kill us all. Well, except in the UK where it’s apparently only served in 20 ounce bottles. (To give Anakana credit, I’m sure the bottle was larger than 20 ounces. It just seemed so damned small. This is no longer an issue as I no longer drink Diet Coke, so let’s move on.)
For my main, I ordered the lamb. I’m going to massacre the name, but I think it was something like Rogan Nosh. David ordered the same. Chris went for the biryiani–again, which has me wondering–what is Indian Street Food if it’s not Indian food? Because according to them, they’re different, but I know I’ve had biryiani before. (Now if only I could spell it.)
Faithful readers will know I don’t like to work for my food. So I was a tad worked up when the lamb rogan something arrived–on the BONE. Lots of little bones. It was like sparerib tips or something. But they were GREAT. Loved them. Meat just melted off the bone. It was like someone had taken my mother’s pressure cooker to India. Felt bad leaving those leftovers behind!!! (One of these days, I will write my treatise in support of the UK doggy bag.)
Chris claimed to like his biryani, but he sure didn’t eat a whole lot. Suspicious!
Now, I didn’t check out the toilets, but the boys did and apparently, they are very disturbing or different or something. So I will have to go back, just for this.
The best part of the meal was the part where we left and Chris kicked-over one of their giant candles. Okay, kicked-over is an understatement. How about "drop-kicked giant ball of hot waxy fire across restaurant"? That was funny. They get extra points for not getting super mad at us about that. Dude though–can I just say Fire Code?
The Verdict: I think I need a couple of trips back. I need to unravel this streetfood mystery, and sneak out some lamb tips.
