I went back to AM Kitchen and Bar on Saturday night , yes only 2 days after the launch – I really do like curry that much! (read the launch review here). When we arrived we were shown straight to a table, our drinks order was taken and popadoms arrived within minutes. For starters we had chicken tikka and onion bahjis. The chicken was even better than launch night, bigger juicer pieces with the spicy tikka flavouring, the only downfall was that the chicken wasn’t hot. The onion bahjis were hot, but a bit lacking in flavour.
I had lamb madras for my main, which was a bowl of hot with an undercurrent of madras flavours. My friend had a lamb balti which she said was a lovely mild spicy dish, unfortunately the chillies in my madras had burnt off my taste buds so I couldn’t even taste a hint of balti spices. Again the meat was a good quality, tender chunks of lamb, but not as much sauce as I would’ve liked. We shared a generous portion of rice and a garlic naan which I’m pleased to report contained a good amount of garlic.
Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of the food, in fact by the time I remembered to get my camera out all we had left was an empty bottle of wine! The wine was actually really nice, it was the house wine, and was better than whatever wine I had been drinking on launch night. Using a French grape from the Laguedoc region, Moulin Grandet is produced by Australian wine makers. The blend of French grapes with the production methods of the new world wines gives a superbly balanced wine, soft and fruity and smooth. A quaffable drinking wine.
Although I enjoyed the meal, if I had to pick one word to describe both the food and the service at AM Kitchen and Bar it would be ‘inconsistent’.
The service started out great, but then our starters arrived just as we were finishing the popadoms, and the mains arrived straight after the last mouthful of bhaji, no time for a breather to make room for more between courses. After our plates had been cleared it seemed like ages before a waiter brought us some hand wipes and he didn’t ask if we wanted anything else, any dessert or more drinks not even a coffee. I was trying to persuade my friend that she had enough room to squeeze in a delicious kulfi icecream dessert but no one came to take our order. In the end we had to flag a waiter down to ask for the bill, twice, and even then it took more than 15 minutes for someone to bring it. We weren’t impressed because it was cutting into our Saturday night drinking time!
I don’t think AM Kitchen and Bar going to become my new favourite restaurant but I will still go back, I want to try the chicken and keema karahi to see how it compares to the chicken keema dish I usually have at Akbars. But I will only be going back while I have free wine vouchers as it’s a bit pricey. Overall we paid about the same for just the meal as we would pay for the meal and the wine elsewhere. Plus there was a 10% service charge built in and I wouldn’t have tipped that much on this occasion because I wasn’t happy with the service at the end of the night. But its definitely worth going back for the good wine, especially while its free! I still have some vouchers left to give away for a free bottle – e-mail me weeziemase@hotmail.com if you want one!
If you love a good curry come and join my Curry Club on Linked In
AM Kitchen and Bar is located in the former Dysons Clock building on Briggate and is part of the Leeds Marriott hotel.
