Our Latest Great Place To Eat - Pink Salt
Friday 24 November 2017
Located in an upstairs premises at the Town Hall end of the town, it originally housed Shelby’s restaurant, in the good times, and subsequently a Greek and a Lebanese restaurant for two brief incarnations.
The team behind Pink Salt have a good pedigree, having all worked between them at Nisheeth Tak’s fabulous Rasam in Glasthule, and for Asheesh Dewan’s superb Jaipur Group. Setting up a new restaurant is always nerve-wracking, and Maitre’d Jithin did a double take on spotting me, when I rolled up on their first Sunday evening of opening with Sir in tow, as we were being seated quietly in a corner by a delightful young waitress. On top of that, all the local Indian food aficionados seemed to have already discovered them and were pouring up the stairs behind us.
It’s a big modern space over two floors, and features the all important colour and life – it just felt good. “They’ll do alright here”, I said to Sir, who nodded in agreement, chomping on poppadoms and dips as though there was no tomorrow. Pink Salt, incidentally, is a Himalayan rock salt that is supposed to be good for you – like everything else nowadays!
A dozen or so starters included Punjabi samosas; Malai tikka - cream cheese and cardamom marinated tandoori grilled chicken; and prawn chilli Andhra – a sizzling affair of juicy prawns coated with star anise and chilli, black salt and coriander. Calamari was there too as well as a Himalayan pork fry. A good way to get an overview of starters is with their selection platter. Sir went with aloo tikki, crispy fried spiced potato cake, dressed with tamarind and honey, while I had Kerala jhinga, a brace of fab spiced jumbo prawns, pan seared and presented with fresh mango and melon salad. That’s a must have!