Momos
We went to Fatt Pundit after a visit to the Hunterian Museum, which may have been a bad decision as the epic collection of things pickled in jars, strangely contorted skeletons and surgical instruments in this museum can leave you feeling a little… queasy… after a while. Not many museums can boast such an impressive collection of foetuses. Shudder. We definitely needed a couple of cocktails to soothe the nerves before tucking into lunch.
Fatt Pundit picks up an unusual bit of global cuisine – the Chinese-Indian cooking that is found in Kolkata, to where a group of Cantonese people migrated in the 18th and 19th centuries. I’m always up for a new cuisine! The dining room is the typical narrow front-to-back shape in central London, full of tables, no modern open kitchen here. It’s a nice enough ambience but never going to be memorable. Cocktails likewise; Maureen’s twist on an old fashioned promised saffron but I think they’d need to have skipped the almond liqueur which took over. My tamarind sour was very drinkable.
Veggie fry
Dishes! We started with goat momos, good bites in soft dumplings with a tomatoey spicy dip. First dish up was sticky fried veg. The sticky goo coating the bite-sized pieces was easy to like, sweet and hot, and I couldn’t really identify the individual veg it coated. They had been cooked down to a chewy nugget texture and worked very well. Next up, rabbit wontons, a bowl of soft and slippery noodles with shredded bits of juicy meat hiding amongst them, all coated in a dark umami gravy. Absolutely a soothing thing. Third up, crispy salt-and-pepper okra. This was a splendid twist on classic salt-and-pepper squid. The okra had bite (and no sliminess at all) and was properly coated in the thinnest crispy batter, pepped up with plenty of condiment and chilli. A great snack I could munch on any time. Final dish, a “shredded chilly venison”. The venison was small pieces rather than shredded, I would think, in an indistinctly meaty gravy with quite a bit of sweetness and perhaps not enough balance. It came with a plump and fluffy bao-style bread, very good for scooping up the venison.
I enjoyed lunch at Fatt Pundit, all the food was good and just that bit different. That said, it didn’t entirely blow me away either. On reflection the cuisine here (based on our four choices) is actually very much Chinese in style and flavour profile, there’s not much Indian left in it. Except perhaps more chillies than you’d see in Cantonese cooking. It’s reasonable value, maybe £35-£40 each to make a full meal without drinks. I’d say it’s worth a visit if you enjoy trying new things, but I’ll admit that now I’ve tried it I’m probably not hurrying back.
Venison and bun
