Food Review: Arancini Brothers, Maltby Street
Last Saturday, I went over to the latest addition to the Arancini Brother's collection of restaurants. I was gutted that I missed their launch party for the branch as I was in America at the time but they were kind enough to invite my down after I had returned from all my travels.
If you have been reading for awhile now, you would have seen that I had previously reviewed their Kentish Town branch awhile back.
The first thing I noticed upon arrival, was just how spacious the newest venue was. There is plenty of seating both downstairs and upstairs in the venue and the menu was easily viewable on the large screens behind the counter.
At the counter there were a section of both sweet and savoury bakes including 'nutella' and jam jammy dodgers, seitan sausage rolls and even cakes.
Whilst waiting for our food to arrive, I ordered a latte as it was a cold day. The coffee is nothing short of excellent especially as the milk substitute used was incredibly creamy.
The first two dishes that was brought out were actually recommendations from the staff at the restaurant and were there for us to try whilst we made our minds up about our main course.
The first lot of risotto balls that were brought out were Mushroom Risotto balls with eggplant and caramelised onion chutney and rocket. These were so tasty, I would never had put all these flavours together myself, but surprisingly this worked very well. The risotto balls were crispy on the outside and a combination of sticky and creamy on the inside. Out of the eggplant and the onion dressing, I would have to say was the caramelised onion chutney it went so well with the mushrooms and brought out more of its flavour.
The second lot of risotto balls that were brought out for us were the original risotto balls. This was served with rocket, garlic mayo and tomato chutney with a sprinkling of seeds. I want to start of by saying that the garlic mayo on this dish is insane. It actually tastes like real mayo and is as thick and creamy as the standard product. I find that a lot of vegan mayos tend to be watery and have a salad cream consistency to them so I was delighted to find that this did not have that characteristic.
Whilst eating this, I could taste a distinct herby flavour in the dish. At first, I thought that it was the herbs in the tomato chutney but I was actually wrong. A member of the staff at the restaurant explained to me that the original recipe for their arancini balls contain citrus and an array of spices. I have never tasted anything like this in any sort of risotto dish and I wasn't mad because it was again delicious. The texture of the risotto balls again were crispy on the outside and as creamy and sticky as a risotto should be on the inside.
After sharing the two lots of risotto balls with my bestie Hobson, I could already tell that I was beginning to feel quite full. However, the show had to go on. Hobson ordered the Mushroom, Chimichurry and Special Mayo Wrap and I ordered the Tasty Vegan burger. As we wanted to try both, we decided the logical approach was to split the burger and wrap in half.
Apologies for the lack of picture, but there are very few ways you can make a wrap look good ( as you can tell from my photo skills in the photo above) and if you dissect it in half and show the contents it looks like I'm showing off a half eaten burrito. So I naturally opted to just show the one photo of the wrap still intact.
Anyways, the wrap itself was great! It was full of an array of vegetables, sweet and sticky mushrooms and the famous risotto patty. I thought that this was a unique take on wraps as I have never had a wrap with risotto in it before. The mushrooms in this wrap were by far my favourite bit of it. They were glazed in a somewhat sweet sauce and I couldn't seem to completely put my finger on what the exact flavouring was but this was delightful.
Moving on to the burger, this contained a plethora of ingredients including the tomato eggplant sauce featured earlier, onion jam, crispy onions, fresh tomato, rocket and of course the famous risotto patty. This was very different from the burger I had for brunch at Kentish Town but this really was filling. I think that even if I did not have all the other food prior to this, half of the burger would had been enough to keep me full for a good few hours.
Lastly, I received some fries to go with our order. Of course this came as the same time as our mains. The potatoes are all lightly salted and have had a hint of paprika sprinkled over them. These fries arguably could be one of the best fries that I have ever tasted though the serving was big even for two people so we could not make our way through most of them.
By the time we had finished our main, we were super full and I honestly didn't think there was any room for dessert. However, the lovely staff offered to box some dessert up for us to take away and try at home and that is what we did. Hobson chose a Jammy dodger and I chose a Black Forest cake as it reminded me of my childhood growing up in Singapore buying my birthday cakes from Bengawan Solo.
Once again, we both shared these and had half of each. The black forest cake was moist, flavoursome and brought back memories of my childhood and there was no difference between this and the non-vegan cakes that I had had growing up. The jammy dodger on the other hand was a bit different to what I remember regular jammy dodgers being like. For a start, I remember Jammy Dodgers having jam that is a bit more tackier and sticker than the jam in this. Next, the cookie itself is a lot more crumbly than that of what I remember Jammy Dodgers to be like. Don't get me wrong, this was very tasty but just don't expect it to taste 100% like the original!
Overall, we had a great time at Arancini brothers and were so grateful for the invite down. Be sure to check out their store if you are ever in the area!
Nikki Xo
* please note that this was a complimentary meal.
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