I've been a bit of a fan of
Scene since I first visited back in
May last year. Lee and I had been shopping and ordered so much food that it would have easily fed four. Last December we went en masse for our work Christmas Do, and once again, ate so much food that we had to call it a night at about 10pm, declaring ourselves too full for cocktails.
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to go and try out their new superfoods menu, which was created by executive chef Sudesh Singh and celebrity Nutritional Biochemist, Jeannette Jackson. Both were on hand to explain the menu, and how it had been developed. These new offerings promise 'a special focus on superfoods and healthy eating to nourish the mind, body and soul'. Let's see what they've got then.
First up was the obligatory poppadoms and dabba. I'm not sure how they fit into the superfood category, but they were very welcome all the same. We were starved.
Carrot and coriander soup: This soup was gorgeous, but gee whiz, it blew our heads off. All memories of the chilly walk from Deansgate train station were blown away after a mouth full of this. The general consensus was that everyone enjoyed it, but perhaps a little less heat next time. We ate it all though...
Chicken 65, Lucknowi chicken wing and paneer pakora: A nice little selection of starters, my favourite being the paneer, although again, I'm not sure how much of a superfood fried cheese is.
Potato and mint chaat: Loved this dish. Just look at it, I couldn't wait to dig in. Lots of protein in the chickpeas, bursting with colour and a subtle minty flavour in the potato chaat.
Mirchi pakora: One of my favourites. A green pepper filled with 'Scene's special stuffing'. I have no idea what this was, I just know that I liked it.
Spiced grilled chicken, and kale & beetroot with spiced orange: This chicken was fantastic. Really nice depth of flavour and still very moist. Luckily for me, it seems someone forgot to add the beetroot (mortal enemy) to the salad. Bonus!
Chicken biryani: My absolute favourite dish. I love a good biryani. Mix this with the daal and scoop it up with that soft nan bread. Heaven.
Nan: So simple, yet often got so wrong. This was perfect, soft and fluffy, and warm from the tandoor.
Daal Punjabi: Very popular on our table, this one. My mouth is watering remembering how well this went with the two dishes above. I could eat this every day. At least once.
It was quite a long evening, and not a natural way to try the dishes to be honest, however, we enjoyed everything we ate. There's quite some competition in Manchester now in the realms of Indian food, so it's interesting that Scene are trying to appeal to a different market. Healthy isn't a word that I would have associated with Indian street food before, so I'll be interested to see how this one pans out. I can imagine it would be more popular with people ordering tiffin for lunch, rather than those wanting a sit down meal, but it's great to have a healthy option available too.
Disclaimer: This was a press evening run by Scene. We were given samples of the food from the new menu, and were asked for our honest opinion throughout the evening.
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