Shiima and I love Indian cuisine, probably because it has quite a few elements similar to Kenyan/Arab cuisine (her) and Nigerian cuisine (me). So we are always excited about going to an Indian restaurant. What made Kricket even more exciting for me is that it serves tapas style small dishes and I love that because you can try a lot of dishes and not seem too greedy lol.
Like I said earlier, Kricket is a restaurant that serves tapas-style contemporary Indian cuisine, but with British ingredients. There are two restaurants, in Soho and White City, and as the name of this review would suggest we dined at Kricket Soho.
Kricket Soho has a very modern and relaxed vibe with counter seating around an open kitchen on the ground level – very much reminiscent of Barrafina – and more communal seating below ground. Kricket don’t do reservations for parties of 2, so we’d avoided going to Kricket for a while, based largely on our experience with Hoppers Soho. But we made sure to arrive just after they opened for dinner and on a weekday. We got there 5:30ish last Thursday and we weren’t the first or second people there. We were sat almost in the centre of the counter, which gave us a really good view.
The menu is clean and simple in layout with breads, sides, veg, fish, meat, and pudding, but almost every dish is intriguing.
What we ordered
We ordered Masala Bread and Shiima ordered Ghee Rice. From veg, Shiima ordered samphire pakoras and Jerusalem artichoke & pea samosas. From fish, I ordered cockle thoran and hake with malai sauce. From meat, I ordered goan sausage jamun, Shiima ordered goose vindaloo, and we ordered keralan fried chicken to share. Seems like a lot, but we were ready lol.
Review of the Food
Bread
The bread had an odd taste for Shiima and I … Shiima supposes there was probably too much masala. It’s freshly baked bread though, so we enjoyed it regardless.
Veg
The samphire pakoras were “deconstructed” according to Shiima, and I’ll go with that because I know nothing about pakoras. We both agreed they were tasty though and very moreish, especially because they were well tossed in date and tamarind chutney.
I only had a tiny bit of the samosas, which means Shiima really like them as that is all she offered me. I liked them, crisp pastry and delicious filling.
Fish
The cockle thoran was good. I don’t think I’ve ever had cockles, but I’m certainly open to them now. They had the consistency of tenderer mussels and they are smaller. Most the flavour comes from the coconut thoran though, and I would’ve liked more flavour in the that.
The Hake was good as well. It was perfectly fried and malai sauce was top notch. I even had to enjoy some rice with it and as you might know, I avoid rice lol.
Meat
I didn’t quite get the goan sausage jamun … even now a couple days later I don’t remember much of anything about the dish. I know I ate them and I know I didn’t quite enjoy them. Why? I couldn’t tell you.
We didn’t like the Keralan fried chicken and believe me, we wanted to, especially Shiima. And it certainly looked good too. It just lacked flavour, both the chicken and the coating.
Shiima didn’t enjoy her goose vindaloo. It was her first time trying goose and she gave it a good effort, but even I didn’t particularly enjoy the goose when she passed it on to me. The goose was bland. The vindaloo curry on the other hand was really nice and had excellent spice. Weirdly though, when you ate the goose with the curry it didn’t improve the goose much. I had a piece of the keralan-fried chicken with the curry and it certainly improved that though.
Dessert/Pudding?
We wanted a dessert, but we weren’t keen on any of the two puddings on the menu.
Verdict
Kricket Soho has all the elements we love, but the food mostly wasn’t to our liking. It’s tapas style, the vibe is excellent, and the service is very attentive, but the food … we’d hoped for better. It easily could just be our palates, so I suggest you give a try if the concept intrigues you … and it should. It’s also very fairly priced. I recommend for foodies, relaxed dates, and casual dining. There are communal seats downstairs, although I didn’t see them, so there is a good possibility it’s ideal for large groups as well.
Cuisine: Indian
Dress Code: Casual
Shiima’s Star Dish: Jerusalem artichoke and pea samosas
Amen’s Star Dish: Hake, malai sauce, samphire, roasted poha.
Price: £20-£30 each (excluding alcohol)
Rating: 3 out of 5
Kricket Soho
12 Denman Street
London W1D 7HH
No reservations for small groups, but you can reserve on their website for 4 or more for dinner and 2 or more for lunch
