MannaPosted on 2008/10/18 13:06:10 (October 2008). Yesterday was our "official" wedding anniversary (we had the actual ceremony in December, this just marks the day when we did the paperwork), so Chie suggested we go and try Manna for the first time - a long running vegetarian restaurant in Primrose Hill, North London.
I have to admit I was initially not that excited by the menu - top of the list of mains was a fairly unpromising "cauliflower and almond curry", which sounded more like a side dish to me, and priced at £13, gave me the definite impression that disappointment could lay in store there. So I deftly avoided that, along with a few other underwhelming sounding options, such as the root vegetable tagine, the chef's salad, and a very plain sounding pasta dish. The main I actually ordered - the lentil, lemon and herb cake (with celeriac and swede mash, wild mushroom and oregano ragout, braised cavolo nero and truffle oil) was the only thing I really fancied.
For drinks, Chie fanced rosé wine, so we ordered a bottle of their serenel rosato bettili, which was pleasant enough.
For starters, Chie had the jerusalem artichoke and rosemary tart and I had the herb-crusted baked ricotta. The ricotta was a little bland tasting, but had good texture, and the deep fried sage leaves it was served with were tasty and a nice touch. Chie seemed to like her tart, and the green celery pesto it was served with was a surprise hit (I stole some of it to perk up my ricotta a bit).
So, onto our mains - I had the lentil, lemon and herb cake, and Chie had the Mexican platter. Both were generously sized portions, and Chie couldn't finish hers. After my slightly bland starter, I found my main was largely very tasty. Whilst I didn't go particularly wild over the lentil cake itself (somewhat reminiscent of vegetarian haggis), the accompaniments were all very well done - the wild mushroom ragout was particularly flavoursome, and this went very well with the cavolo nero. The mash was good too, I assume it wasn't entirely swede and celeriac (probably some potato in there as well?) as the flavour wasn't as overpowering as I might have expected otherwise.
We skipped dessert as we were a bit full by that point, and thought we couldn't really do it justice, considering the prices.
All in all it was pretty good - the place has a nice cosy atmosphere, the staff were friendly, and it is in a lovely part of the city, just a few minutes walk from the park (where we did in fact go after dinner for a very nice night view out across London). The food was on the whole pretty good too - I definitely wouldn't say I was disappointed, but I think it was probably a little overpriced for what it was - the mains were generally around the £13 mark, the starters around £7, as were the desserts.
I think we both agreed we'd probably go back, but only if the menu changed a bit - we felt like we had the only two mains that really appealed to us, and whilst I did quite enjoy the meal, it wasn't so unbelievably fabulous that I'd be happy to go back and have exactly the same thing again.
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