#FtLionAwards 2018 – Best Seafood of the Year?

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With a curry dish in the running for best main, Chakra Restaurant’s Samundari Khazana, which was also shortlisted for best starter, is also nominated for best seafood dish, with its assortment of perfectly cooked seafood elements that comprised Atlantic sea scallops, squid and fresh water prawns.

Its secret? The spices used as a rub for each element elevated this entire plate to something far more intriguing than it would have otherwise been. The chilli-sweet passionfruit chutney was wonderful, and worked well against the beautifully soft, salty squid, and masala-fied prawns, and the lightly marinated and delicately charred scallops.

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Chi Kitchen in Debenhams’ flagship branch on London’s Oxford Street is known for a menu that’s been created by Masterchef winner Ping Coombes. Following our visit there for a second time, we really came away blown away by the richness of the broth of their curry laksa. The impressive thing about the Chi Kitchen Laksa was the balance achieved in the mildly spicy, buttery coconut sauce. Gorgeously infused with the fishy taste of the sea, it was just right, being neither too strong nor too insipid.

Nevertheless, one has the option of cranking up the heat via the accompanying sambal sauce, which can be stirred through to taste. With plenty of goodies therein too, including meaty morsals of prawns, a few clams, and some pieces of soft fish cake all swimming alongside tender thick noodles of chewy goodness, this laksa is guaranteed to keep your interest to the last slurp.

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New fine dining restaurant Chokhi Dhani in Battersea already has dishes in contention for best starter and dessert. Here the cooking of the monk fish in their Telangana Chappa Koora was bang on perfect! The moist fish steak had a crumbly texture, and was based in a sauce that delivered a good amount of heat, with a zesty aftertaste. It was accompanied by a single crispy slice of lotus root chips, some broccoli, and a bowl of more of that delicious curry sauce. Chokhi Dhani has the cooking of fish down to a tee, that’s for certain.

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Indian fine dining restaurant in Chelsea, Kahani, does it again with the inclusion of this Smoked Malabar Prawn. The precision with which this dish was executed was so precise, that not only were we presented with that distinct degree of tender-chewiness only achievable with prawns blast-cooked to perfection at high temperatures, but forced one Lion to conclude that these were the best he’d ever had!

When you have such addictively thick and meaty prawns, brushed in a subtly spiced marination and presented with a quartet of fruity pearl drops that only enhanced the dish, our only wish was to continue masticating towards ecstasy. Arguably the dish of the review!

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With dishes nominated for best main and dessert, contemporary Indian Fine Dining Matsya in London’s upmarket district of Mayfair unearthed this show-stopping French-style Lobster Thermidor! Presented with elegance atop a glass plate, with edible flowers, vandyke wedges of lime, cherry tomatoes and an assortment of greens for garnish, this humongous crustacean made quite an entrance. The meat from the abdomen had been extracted and cooked with a creamy sauce before smartly being stuffed back into the shell.

And what fun we had with this, and how truly delicious it was too! While the combination of the naturally sweet lobster along with the mildly cheesy, vinegary sauce was good enough on its own, it was made even better with a squeeze of the lime and the resulting sharp, tangy aftertaste.

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Mitsuryu in London’s Chinatown has a dish in the mains that could come out on top. For the moment, their fantastic Unagi Kabayaki is being considered. The eel, oh the eel indeed! Positively enveloped in a rich sticky, almost smoky, teriyaki sauce, the eel had a velvety-cum-spongy texture, with sesame seeds sprinkled over its silky soft skin. Nestled alongside were vegetables, mushroom, and tofu that had a sweetness to it which married well against the teriyaki sauce. And with plenty of rice at the bottom of the bowl, this was an impressive looking thing.

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Yup; believe it or not, RockIT Steakhouse in East London’s Whitechapel presented us salmon which, when cooked on a hot rock, was unmatched.

A quality piece made even better by the cooking process itself. Making certain to place it skin-down on a sizzling hot and pre-seasoned volcanic stone, will transform this gorgeous piece of fillet steak into something indescribably unique that’s unachievable via a grill or a pan. Unlike steaks, be sure not to turn this over too hastily. Instead, watch closely for the flesh closest to the heat to lose its orange hue and turn progressively paler in colour from the bottom-upwards. After about a minute, you can then slide your knife in between the skin and the meat and separate the two. But, don’t you dare discard of the skin. Rather, take advantage of the heat and really crisp it up for a deeply fishy textural contrast, that’s enhanced by the sea salt, to enjoy alongside the beautifully tender and succulent, almost caramalised, chunks of salmon.