The Inamo in Soho is a fusion restaurant with a definite technological bent, who has a big brother on Regent Street. This venue is smaller, and less open plan that the St James one, but still offers great food and interesting surroundings.
The biggest talking point about Inamo is the “E-table.” A projector shines a menu onto the table for you to make your selections. A server than appears a short time later and delivers your order.
While you wait for your meal you can have a game of battleships, select a virtual tablecloth, or watch the kitchen on the chef cam. It’s a great idea, but somewhat impersonal. Instead of discussing the dishes with your waiter, they scuttle out, deliver your meal, the disappear back into the kitchen.
Our starter consisted of baby crispy prawns and a dragon roll, pork ribs, crispy tofu and tomato and avocado salad. The prawns were lightly battered and came with a Thai-style mango relish. The batter was light, the prawns tasty, and that mango was simply great.
The dragon roll is a breaded tiger prawn and crab salad maki which is wrapped in mango and avocado with teriyaki. It’s a confusing mix, but tastes delicious. The combination of light fruit flavours and seafood works really well.
The braised pork ribs were served with a pea sauce and were soft, juicy, and almost fell off the bone. The crispy tofu had spring onion, with daikon and shiitake mushrooms. The tofu was lightly crisp, and full of flavour, the mushrooms added a lovely earthy tone to it all.
Main course was tiger king prawns and duck pancakes. The prawns were grilled and served with a hot sauce called Nam Jim. The spiciness was just right, and heated the dish up perfectly.
The duck pancakes had roasted duck and hoi sin sauce. It came with salad on the side, but we were too interested in the delicious duck to worry too much about it. The duck was lightly crisp, and not fatty at all. A triumph.
Inamo Soho is a solid place to eat. It’s a little smaller than the St James venue, so of the two, we would suggest eating there.
The Bill: £55 per head
