Sixty-Five Degrees North revisits Amarillo and finds that new Indian restaurant A Taste Of India isn't the cheery family chowhouse it appears to be.
AMARILLO ***
Amarillo‘s huge menu is overwhelming, portions are small and the food is standard fare, but at least you know what you’re getting.
What Amarillo misses is good hearty Tex-Mex food - like this bowl of chili.
Amarillo - the name means 'yellow' in Spanish - redid its menu last April to offer the same nacho, burrito, steak and potato, only with a ‘lights’ section and extra sides. Meals sport names like ‘Fajita Magic’ or ‘Beef and Pork Burrito Grande,' and deals range from 14€ for a goat’s cheese salad to 28,50€ for a very expensive pepper sirloin.
For pub food, this isn’t value at all, but cute waitresses grin at you over comfortable dark wood paneling, candles, and leather benches, so you forgive. The place seats all but the busiest Friday and Saturday night crowds without a queue, making it handy as Hesburger, especially after nine and if you like the adjacent bar.
Nothing's really tex-mex. The menu loves ample variations of steak and chips or meat and salad wraps in small portions and pepper-printed crockery. What’s missing is a simple bowl of chilli, heaped vegetable mains with guacamole, or generally just more spices and hearty servings.
Another worrying tendency are dwindling amounts of french fries and potatoe slices on the plate.
If you’ve avoided Amarillo for years, the now year-old updated menu isn’t much of a draw, but it remains a solid choice – especially if you’re a fan of the setting and forget how much pub food should cost.
ATASTE OF INDIA *
A Taste Of India is a hairy chunk of naughtiness that needs to start caring about its customers.
This is what we think an 18€ platter should look like.
A Taste Of India, the second eatery from a local Bangladeshi entrepreneur, looks inviting from its hi-rent spot on Pakkahuoneenkatu but the food, service, and décor all need a radical rethink.
Our party of three arrives on a Friday, pushing past the chill.
Bums touch chair. The hostess shuffles up to recommend the expensive dishes. Her deputy appears for orders and leaves, also without smile or nod. We get up to the salad bar unwittingly but are told to go back (though the salad is in the middle of the restaurant, the staff and only the staff can combine lettuce, cucumber, jalapeno, and thousand island mayonnaise).
Main courses arrive. Plates clatter; a voice yells “have a good meal!” in the opposite direction. Though hot, all the sauces are oily, murky chicken bits. My friend Tuomo's eighteen euro platter looked sumptuous but turns out to be supermarket chili sauce, lettuce bits, and one wrinkly potato fritter.
‘I can't believe this,’ says Tuomo, stifling a laugh. 'Good old Tuomo,' I think. 'He's got a sense of humour.'
Soon Tuomo's wife, a happy-go-lucky vegetarian, notices that though she ordered aubergine curry, she's eating chicken too. Fifteen minutes later the chef replaces this with reheated frozen peas, which she spoons through looking for the aubergine.
None of the waitresses sit still. Though the restaurant's empty, they belt across its two levels glaring and fixating, as if they want the few customers to go away. The walls, sockets, cables, and fixtures are painted red or covered in bright red velveteen curtains.
Seriously: if anyone fromA Taste Of India is reading this, we’re sorry; we’d love to recommend you, but in the words of Gordon Ramsay, ‘you need to get your sh*t together.’
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