It’s not even November yet, but it’s already that time of year when we all start booking our Christmas parties and office lunches. This week Indian restaurant East Z East invited me down to their Manchester Riverside restaurant to sample their Christmas menu, which will be available during December at £21.95 for 3 courses.
With its luxurious décor and massive downstairs dining room full of spacious seating and booths, plus the fabulous cocktails (I enjoyed an amazing Passion Fruit Collins, which I just have to get a recipe for), it’s a great venue for a work Christmas meal. In fact my boyfriend has had his team Christmas lunch there for the past two years and loved it, so he was more than happy to tag along with me to this menu launch!
Actually we all dined in their Private Dining Area on the ground floor, which was like a deluxe board room with walls of running water and one large table, and although the main downstairs area is perfectly lavish enough, I loved the fact that in this room you can plug in your own phones or iPods and control the music that plays! A great feature!
Onto the food, we started off with poppadoms and a fantastic selection of chutneys, and then sampled some of the starters that will be on the menu, including Tandoori Lamb Chops and Onions Bhajis. I never actually have starters in an Indian restaurant, just because I prefer saving myself for the actual curries, but everything I tasted was very tasty.
There are ten choices of main course on the Christmas menu, which I think is great! There is likely to be something for everyone on there, and we got chance to sample some of these dishes (as shown left to right in the image): a Chicken Tikka Makhani, which was mild, creamy and delicious; a Lamb Sookha Bunah (off the bone), which was slightly spicier and had the most incredible tender meat; and finally a Seafood Balti. I would never ever normally choose a fish curry, but this (which I thought was the spiciest of the three, but still pretty mild) was so tasty and jam packed with prawns and fish that I may be converted!
And then finally I enjoyed a dessert of Swiss Chocolate Cheese Cake (one of four options on the menu) served with my choice of ice cream – Ferrero Rocher if you’re wondering. It was pretty rich, so may be a challenge after eating the other courses, but so amazing!
So it got the seal of approval from both me and my boyfriend, and everyone else who attended too. Definitely one to consider for your Christmas social gatherings!
English Rose from Manchester's Blog 