With Valentine's Day turned the corner and the fact that my wife and I had a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Sri Lanka last year, I thought it was time to try Brook with Ilkley and their Sri of Lancan cuisine. Provided.
We booked a table for two at 6pm on February 14th.
We loved the food when we were in Sri Lanka. I am the devil of my spicy food, and the range of vegetarian curry in particular was one of the things that made our holiday particularly memorable. I was particularly pleased to find a country where it was accepted to have curry for breakfast, lunch and tea.
The strapline at the Family Run restaurant was a tapas from Sri Lankan in Pracida. When asked about who Pracida was, we found out that it was the owner's mother who inspired the restaurant after helping her mom prepare food and prepare meals.
Brook recently moved from a small property on Brook Street to where Sachi's Indian restaurant once existed in Ilkley, Moore's shopping centre. The decoration had been changed to rough wooden panels by Jen Thomas on the wall, brass lights and an interesting large canvas artwork. When we came in it was light and welcoming, where we passed the bar where we were greeted and shown to the table.
I ordered a glass or rose from my local IPA and my wife. After that, I handed over the menu and left to make my choice.
The appetizer options were limited with 3 appetizers, including dal, garlic shea grasshopper and tempura king shrimp. I decided to share Tempura Engs.
There were options to share plate starters, such as seafood platters, vegan platters, and mix platters. The choice of each platter sounded great, but we found one delivered to another table and it was huge. I decided not to complete the main if I went down this route, so I gave a mistake in the starter platter.
The rest of the menu consisted of small plates tapas-sized dishes. There was a really eclectic mix of Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian cuisine. We were advised by the waiter that 2-3 dishes each would be sufficient for the two of us. We agreed to share five dishes and vegetable rice and settling down (I wasn't sure it would be enough, but my wife always said she could order more!).
There was a great choice, but I remembered to eat mostly vegetarian dishes when I was in Sri Lanka, so I chose vegetarian dishes, shrimp dishes and chicken dishes. Even though they were very young I have to scream at the staff as they were really helpful, friendly and efficient advice and an excellent level of service.
The Sri Lankan tapas arrived quickly and we really felt that we had made a big choice in our choice. They were small plates.
First was a chicken cotto. I tried this on my days off and can guarantee its credibility. It's like food from a Sri Lankan street stall. Add the chicken and eggs, stir-fry, then cook in a curry sauce mixed with fine carrots, spring onions and green onions. It's very tasty.
We then went to the king shrimp plate that we had removed. This was tiger shrimp cooked in sweet chili peppers and soy sauce. It was rich and painful.
Our vegetarian options included Obergin Mod. This was probably my favorite dish in the evening, a traditional Sri Lankan dish with aubergine, cooked in coconut sauce after deep fried. This provided a small portion of Cous cous mixed with Lazen. aubergine
Next was a stir-fried Ceylon. It consisted of chili peppers mixed with rice noodles, ginger and vegetables fried in soy sauce. This was delicious and quite light food.
Finally, our last little plate dish was green beans and cashews curry. This was mostly a sate escu and served in a very creamy sauce. In this mild Sri Lankan curry sauce, tender green beans were cooked entirely on cashews.
It was a lovely meal – there were such a variety of flavors, textures and flavors. This restaurant brings great justice to Sri Lankan cuisine and I think it was great to recreate memories of the tastes of the previous holiday.
A 10% tip, total costing £81, each had a few drinks that seemed very reasonable.
