The team behind Sanskruti are Jay and his wife, whose original venture is in Manchester, which I have yet to visit, they obviously have a thriving business.
You enter via a small stairwell from pavement level and the restaurant is decorated in warm colours and was quite busy on a Thursday evening.
We were given menus and experienced our only hiccup, being told there was no vegan wine on the list, very strange for a vegetarian and vegan restaurant, so ordered a Cobra lager instead (more about this later)
Our first choice was some street food of bhel, crispy bombay mix served with tender potatoes, onions, puffed rice, sev and an assortment of chutneys. I have never had anything like it and loved its presentation.
It was a good sized portion and I thought it was going to be heavy and filling, but the complete opposite, it was light, crispy with loads of textures. The chutneys consisted of tomato, mango, green coconut and onion, it was pointed out the yogurt was not vegan, so Steven ate it. The bhel was a delightful start to the meal.
Our first starter was patra, little cakes made of steamed colocasia leaf rolls, stuffed with masala mixture and sprinkled with sesame seeds, grated coconut and coriander leaves.
Another totally new dish, the cakes were light and tasty, with the crunch of sesame and flavours of coconut.
Our second starter was tandoori mushroom amritsari, the mushrooms being marinated in gram flour, with herbs spices and carom seeds. I love mushrooms and this was a fabulous dish, succulent and went so well with the chutneys.
Onto our main courses of channa palak, made of chickpeas and spinach cooked in aubergine gravy and spices and lasaniya bateta, a garlic flavoured baby potato dish, sauteed in spices, with boiled rice and extra green chillies for me.
The two dishes were fantastic, it is not your usual Indian restaurant fare, this is traditional, authentic cooking, from various regions of Indian, it is light but packed with flavour, not heavy with oil and the vegetables were perfectly cooked.
Steven managed some Swedish Glace chocolate ice-cream for dessert and then we both had mint tea to finish.
My only small gripe are the toilets, which need some refurbishment, but the place is a work in progress I guess, as they only opened six months ago and being a family business, Rome was not built in a day. In any case I was not here for the decor, but the food and that was certainly a taste sensation, we both loved it.
I had a brief chat with Jay at the end of the evening, who apologised for the confusion about the wine, the Manager was new and had given me the wrong information. Jay asked me if there was anything they could do to improve my vegan experience, so I suggested labelling vegan wines on the list, would be a great help.
If you like Indian food, with a huge choice for vegans, you really need to head off to Sanskruti in Liverpool or Manchester.
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