While I was in London on business, I suggested a few restaurants for my friend Mandolin to meet me at for dinner. She hadn’t heard of any of them, and quite frankly was scared at some of my recommendation. I guess aerial acrobats and hot tubs aren’t her thing. Hahaha. She was intrigued by one of the places on the list, so she agreed to meet me at Inamo. I hadn’t been there, either, but it sounded really fun to me. Sort of a ultra-modern Asian fusion restaurant. On the way there, I found two other places I’d like to try next time.
One of the places I walked past seemed to be named after my friend Coach from back home:
And the other place seemed right up my alley. It’s called Enrique Tomas and it sells pig legs. Literally. You can go in and pick up an entire cured leg of pig with different flavors. MANY different flavors. You can get little snack packs to go. Shaved or cubed. They’ll slice off a mountain of slivers while you watch and you can get it in a paper cone to go. A veritable pork-nado. Damn my dinner plans!
Inamo made up for my missed pork cones, however. 100%. You get seated at a completely white table by a host. The host shows you a small track pad for your finger in the bottom right hand of the table. The table is lit by a projector above and shines down onto the table. You touch the pad and an arrow appears with menu options like on a computer screen. Except it’s on your table. You can select your table “desktop” (or the server will do it for you, which is how we got stuck with the Union Jack pattern. Then you can begin to select menu items and drinks.
When you click on a menu item, the projector shows you exactly what your food will look like as it is projected onto your plate. Absolutely amazing. So the server makes sure you know how to operate the table menu ordering system and then you’re on your own. You can order appetizers and they bring them out.
You can order drinks and they bring them out. You can order entrees and desserts and they bring them out. We ordered a nice bottle of wine, baby pork ribs, Korean glazed pig cheeks, edamame, black cod, duck with pancakes, and baby Malayan chicken.
I’d love to go through each menu item, but honestly, I can’t say anything bad about any of these dishes. They were all top-notch. Not just good, but fantastic. The pig cheeks were my favorite, but I love me some guanciale, so I’m biased. Both the duck and Malayan Chicken were wonderful and tasted completely different – not everything tastes like chicken!
We, of course, finished our bottle of wine and after dinner, we headed down to the basement lounge and had a few more cocktails to finish off the night. Very cozy and little “funky” with some couches, pillows, chairs, and other unusual decorations. You can wit down here while waiting for your table/reservation to pop-up in a pinch.
Technology aside, this restaurant can stand on its own for the flavors, breadth of menu, quality ingredients, and atmosphere. I’m going to recommend this place to anyone I know who’s headed over to London. Not only is it fun, it’s worth going back to for the food. Without question.