Review: Paradise, at home

After perhaps a dozen different “posh takeaways” across lockdown, I’ve now got an absolute red hot favourite to recommend. It’s perhaps not a surprise; if I ponder my way across the cuisines of the world, this one stands out for having an astonishing range of bold, bright flavours and a diverse mixture of flavours and textures, all backed by a solid street-food and sharing-feast culture. That makes for an excellent combo to put into a food box feast that can be served up with just a bit of reheating.

Have I spun out the announce long enough? I should also add that I am honourably excluding Dastaan. There simply couldn’t be a takeaway better than what you get from the best straight Indian restaurant in the UK (my award, no arguments brooked). But it is literally a takeaway; I can get it home still hot and put it on a plate. So on those tenuous grounds, I’m excluding Dastaan from the “Best lockdown food box feast” award.

And the award goes to… Paradise, Soho. We fell in love with our first meal there, back in the days when restaurants were open; they seemed intent on doing for Sri Lankan food what Kiln around the corner was doing for Thai. And everything they do translates superbly to a food box.

You’ve got your aubergine moju (oh gods I love moju!), you’ve got your pol sambol, you’ve got a spicy little empanada with tamarind mayo to start the meal. Cleverly, you’ve got your seeni sambol in the form of seeni sambol butter, to slather on the huge hunk of soft and cloudy paan bread (you’re instructed to toast this yourself). Oh wow… this was one of the best flavoured butters ever. Ever ever.

You’ve got the true Sri Lankan turmeric dahl, full of deeply smoky and earthy flavours but less velvet-buttery than the best Indian dahls. For the main event you’ve got a wonderfully flavour-packed pulled pork shoulder with plenty of warm spices and a fragrant palm sugar caramel to pour over it. Oh, and an astonishing dollop of smoked coconut yogurt that I WANT AN ENTIRE VAN-LOAD OF RIGHT NOW. I have no idea how they got that much flavour and silkiness in there but I would eat it with everything.

We cheated, I admit. We ate it all with our fingers. Food always, always tastes better when you eat it with your fingers. Doesn’t matter, this would still have been the best food box.

There was a nicely sticky cinnamon rice pudding for after, and a bottle of fresh Sri Lankan ginger beer. And this was a generous box too. Basically we had enough extra of everything to have a cold Sri Lankan brunch the next day.