MY first act at Rambutan was to witness the restaurant equivalent of a brutal left-swiping on Tinder. Two female friends strode up towards this brand-new spot in Borough Market, cooed excitedly at its mango yellow frontage, approached to peer at the menu of appealing, mid-priced contemporary Sri Lankan dishes in its window, and then, um, abruptly hurried off in the opposite direction.
As an image, it stuck with me because of its unexpectedness (let us be generous and presume that they both had acute, rare allergies to affordably-priced mutton rolls and pandan-scented dal) and also because it emphasised the snap judgments that will seal the fate of many hospitality businesses in the coming months.
But there is also, I suppose, a more straightforward reason why it stayed with me as a moment. And that, bluntly, is because I now know that watching two diners pass up the chance of eating at this place — a long-simmering first restaurant from Sri Lankan-British chef and cookbook author Cynthia Shanmugalingam — ranks as one of the most inadvertently terrible decisions I’ve witnessed in months.
Because, truly, no matter where that pair ended up that lunchtime, they would not have experienced anything quite like the giddying crunch and sweetness of cubed apple and celeriac in a mustard-laced acharu pickling liquor; they will not have swiped buttery roti through an infernal, brow-dampening red curry as Gil Scott-Heron rang out across a buzzy, tropical playground. They will not, I don’t think, have experienced anything that had quite the same affecting mix of familiarity and surprise; of likeable, easy charm and pummelling, spice-forward boldness.
That name clues you in to the space that Shanmugalingam, a Coventry-born diaspora kid, is hoping to stake out for herself. A rambutan is a hairy lychee used all over south-east Asia — though rarely found in India — and the restaurant exists as a means to challenge Sri Lankan food’s occasional status as merely an inessential addendum to the more famous flavours of the subcontinent. From the introductory little section of drinking snacks and short eats, devilled cashew nuts, strewn with crisped plantain chips and glimmering, fried shreds of curry leaf, were a rambunctious curtain-raiser.
The same was true of those “mutton” rolls; which, in this instance, were actually sharply crisped, breaded logs of vigorously spiced bone marrow and beef. Gunda dosa, meanwhile, were like balls of tangy, deep-fried crumpet and exactly as NC-17 rated as that sounds. If these dishes felt particularly lucid and fully-formed, then that didn’t always apply to every single part of the experience. That dal, faintly flavoured with lemongrass, was deliberately subtle but also not especially memorable.
The space — a two-level mix of potted palms, dusky pink surfaces and rattan dining chairs arrayed around a thrumming open kitchen — could also probably benefit from one or two things on the walls. Still, it is curry that is really at the pulsing heart of what Rambutan is all about. A dry, Dingley Dell pork number brought hunks of yielding meat and a deep bass note of cardamom and toasted coconut; the pineapple red curry — a roiling, carmine mass of charred fruit and flung fistfuls of black mustard seed — was an absolute ripper. A wholly absorbing tussle of sour, luscious sweetness and fire-breathing burn.
Puddings aren’t available yet (soft-serve ice cream is imminent, apparently) so we contented ourselves with sherbety sips of lime and lemongrass soda, and a chat with the older Canadian couple at the next table.
“That was great,” said the husband, happily dabbing the curry sweats at his temple. “Even though I kinda feel like I need another shower.” It transpired that they had just been wandering the market and, unlike those two friends who walked on by, had decided to take a chance on something unfamiliar. Now, they had to dash to make their flight to Toronto. But, of course, like us, and like anyone else ready to embrace Rambutan’s cool adventurousness and nuanced cultural expression, they had already been on a pretty unforgettable, palate-rattling trip.
