Quite the mouthful of a post title, but Spice Village almost rivals the relatively new Asian food halls in the sheer variety of the food they offer here! Kallisto Steakhouse has grills and fries of shmeat; Peri-Peri Original adds some competition to Nando’s and Galito’s African grilled chicken; Khyber Shinwari is your good old Indian food with curries and naan; and Mandarin Halal Chinese is pretty self-explanatory and unique in the halal part of the idea.
The place itself is punching straight into gourmet and fine dining experience with executive-level seating covering the span of the entire dining area. Once you’re planted in one of these seats – there’s no getting out so you might as well fasten your first class seat belts and order away!
Gig itself was half of a mess, half of a blessing and basically went like this – 4 separate shoots for the 4 parts of Spice Village, and the clever owner went with beverages running across all menus as padding for the minimum number of plates for which I can only applaud the man since I would have done the same in his shoes to avoid making way, way, waaay too much food (and customer orders were absolutely ran through me on this set). Our phone conversation to consolidate everything into the same day also included a bit about me taking some shots for their website separately, but that notion fell apart in favor of his phone the day of so I did some better shots for you, my readers instead! So, here is a rough breakdown of what to expect from the 4 menus that Spice Village offers you, starting with what I got to see almost no items from,
Peri-Peri Original
And to be fair, that friend chicken sandwich looked bomb even without any sauces available! What happened in terms of the shoot was using the drinks to fill in my minimum number of plates as well as some of the desserts offered.
Pretty solid selection overall, and drinks were very good for lacking the fire water I normally prefer.
Mandarin Halal Chinese
Halal meat in Chinese cuisine is definitely something new to me, mostly given the clashing prices for the two kinds of meat and Asian cuisine in general being typically geared towards lower end of the price spectrum for the simpler dishes like fried rice and lo mein.
Definitely some of the better Chinese dishes I’ve seen, especially compared to majority of the takeout only places in any given area. The usual selection of meat sans pork being the main difference between the classic and this halal style. Not a bad trade-off considering everything our pork here is typically pumped with throughout its life span that isn’t always slow-cooked off in a wok stir-fry.
Khyber Shinwari
Finally we get to the tried and true Indian selection of your typical masalas, rice, and naan. Shrimp was a unique ingredient to see here that I can’t even recall from majority of my past shoots typically in favor of various vegetables and avoiding prawns.
And the show-stopper of the entire day was right in here – the mutton karahi served in a huge wok on top of a woven straw basket. This is the kind of dishes I love to see compared to the classic elongated, white bowls. Lemon wedge was a very nice touch as well. Over the years I drifted towards more gamey meats for a variety from your everywhere chicken and beef, and stewed gamey meats are the very best!
The other, sweet, usual suspects also made an appearance here-
You just don’t have Indian cuisine without gulab jamun and mango lassis, it’s an absolute rule (unless you’re a himalayan MO:MO: food truck, since that’s a unique and uncommon dumpling goodness something missing from the regular places).
Kallisto Steakhouse
Save best for last as they say, and Kallisto had some borderline Brazillian vibes happening with both presentation and the protein choices alongside some tried-and-true favorites presented rather lavishly on heavy wooden trays and stone plates.
Chicken makes perfect sense to run alongside Peri-Peri side of the menu, and a juicy cut of steak is a must.
What I’ll guarantee is that you’ve never seen a simple old cheesesteak presented this lavishly ever before, and if you have – you were probably in the wrong spot with your wallet crying. These gave me a good chuckle despite somehow making some sense being on the menu in a variety restaurant. They looked damned good too.
In the end, Spice Village is one interesting variety show of similar and different kinds of cuisines under the same roof and it definitely delivers flavor across the board, whether it’s the figure of speech or their Kallisto wooden slabs with almost-heavier stone slabs on top. I would have liked to see a better variety of Chinese dishes ran through my camera, but based on the dishes I saw – I trust their menu quality.
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