So I know that only two days ago I had Indian but that was a last minute thing and The Cinnamon Club has been in my diary for a couple of weeks now. It has certainly demonstrated to me that Indian food and the restaurant serving it can be presented in such contrasting ways. On the one hand with Urban Turban you have a trendy/funky/modern take on the food and the restaurant with the classical/focus on minute detail take at The Cinnamon Club. I’m not saying that one is necessarily superior to the other but I’m happy at least that my meal tonight was not a carbon copy of Saturday’s! Also, having said that the two restaurants are quite different from each other the two restaurants have also strived to take evolve Indian food using modern ingredients and new styles of cooking.

The Cinnamon Club is located in the Old Westminster Library which I’m not sure is an actual functioning library, in the main dining room we were curious whether the books lining the walls above our heads were actual books, but it certainly made for a distinctive venue for dinner. It felt quite traditional without being stuffy and on the way to the toilets we also noted a couple of interesting and funky bars (including one which had rubber floors, leather walls and a long wall which had videos projected up on to it) which were quite different from the main dining room we were having dinner in. We arrived fairly early and only a few diners were dotted about the large room but by the time we left the place was fairly buzzing with no table spare it seemed. With the Houses of Parliament just around the corner no doubt many of the diners were, if not MPs, related in some manner or form with the machinery of government. Actually, sorry to name drop, although not dining at The Cinnamon Club tonight Rehana and I ran into Boris Johnson on the way back to the tube. I do so get excited when I see someone famous!

Taking advantage of a three course set meal and Bellini for £25 (including service) Rehana and I were delighted with what we got for our money. Having fairly similar tastes we ended up with practically the same meal though we did agree to share our appetisers (mainly because we decided they all sounded too good not to!)

Before we got to our meal though we were treated to an extremely tasty amuse-bouche of some sort of fritter. It was surprising to find such a little thing so packed with intense flavour plus it was a surprise so that made it even more pleasant. Our amuse-bouche was followed by our starters of Punjabi skate wing and sandalwood flavoured tandoori chicken breast. The skate wing was cooked perfectly and just fell off the bone. Though seasoned I was pleased to find the seasoning didn’t overwhelm the flavour of the fish and we were able to enjoy it with the intensely flavoured mango sauce. The tandoori chicken breast was pretty good too – tender, moist, well-flavoured and matched well to the mint sauce that accompanied it.

For mains you basically had a choice of fish, lamb and a vegetarian option and even though we’d had the skate wing for an appetiser both Rehana and I opted for the fish dish of Char-grilled Nile Perch with yoghurt sauce and steamed rice. It doesn’t sound particularly creative but we got was a delight. Once again a great amount of thought had gone into the dish to make sure it was perfectly balanced. The yoghurt sauce had a surprisingly bite to it which complimented the fish superbly.

For desserts neither of us could resist the Honey and Lime Cheesecake with Spiced Banana Short Bread which was extremely yummy. I liked the fact the dish had extra crumble on the side. Finally, we were served Petit Fours (like the amuse-bouche another surprise addition the meal) which finished off the meal nicely. Rehana really liked the dark chocolate sweet and I loved the intensity of the white chocolate sweet so we were both happy.

My only complaint was that the meal was over all too quickly. Don’t imagine that the portion sizes are massive … but then again maybe that’s just my greed coming through as we were both fully satisfied at the end of our meal! Price-wise the set meal was decent value. Going a la carte might have given us a few more choices but it would have definitely pushed the price of the meal up considerably. Starters on the a la carte menu probably averaged around £10 and mains £25 so it is quite pricey it is a reflection of the high quality food.

We had no complaints about service tonight though it was a bit strange to be served by about six different people with different people responsible for taking orders, delivering drinks, delivering meals, picking up our dishes and, as it turned out, producing the bill! This was where we faced our only problem of the night – when we had difficulty trying to track someone down to request the bill. It could be seen as a good thing that they weren’t hovering around our table trying to get rid of us but could have been frustrating if we’d been in a rush to leave.

I would definitely recommend The Cinnamon Club if you want somewhere and something a little different from the usual. An extremely charming venue.