Kasturi, 57 Aldgate High Street, London EC3N 1A Tel: 020 7480 7402 / 7481 0048 Fax: 020 7702 0256

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Having reported on site recently that Kasturi were launching a fish festival that would run from 1st September to 15th October, we decided to go along and try out their special menu. Diagonally opposite Aldgate station, Kasturi has a single frontage entrance that is bright and inviting, standing out from most of the other establishments in Aldgate High Street. You walk in and find that is surprisingly spacious. Bright and colourful it is a comfortable place to sit and enjoy a meal.

The fish menu has four starters: crab kebab, mahi (a fresh water white fish) kebab, salmon tikka and the sea food platter, which was a sharing dish consisting of the first three. We went for the platter, of course and very good the three component parts were too. Each piece tasty and tangy, nicely seasoned to complement the flavour of the fish, yet leave your mouth tingling. This was a good way to start the meal.

For mains the menu offers a further four options: sea food biryani, mahi roll, tawa fish (a marinated fish steak) and goan prawn curry. We chose the biryani and the mahi roll and to go with those we had a barwan tinda which is a small gourd stuffed with nuts and vegetables served with a mild curry sauce. The biryani was a good sized portion, tasty rice that was packed with hunks of fish, prawns, mussels and more, all good flavours that went well with each other. The dish was mildly spiced so not too challenging for the feint hearted. The mahi rolls, were another full flavoured dish, the fish encasing a good minced filling, these were dressed in a creamy mild sauce that supported them well. The barwan tinda was great, the curry sauce it was dressed in was just right for it and contrasted well with the other dishes.

We were too full after all this to even think about dessert.

We had a bottle of chenin blanc with the meal which at about £15 per bottle was reasonable. Service was good and attentive throughout the meal.

For those of you who don’t think that seafood works with curry, we can say, that provided that the mix of spice is right, it does. Kasturi’s menu is very reasonably priced and it is well worth going along to try the fish menu, or just selecting one or two dishes from it as part of your meal. You will be pleasantly surprised. You can look up Kasturi’s site on www.kasturi-restaurant.co.uk where both the standard and fish menus can be viewed, it is worth taking a look.