Sri Lankan Tapas in Ilkley

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner and the fact that this time last year my wife and I had a trip of a lifetime to Sri Lanka, it made me think it was about time to finally get around to trying out Brook’s in Ilkley and their Sri Lankan food offering.

I booked a table for two for 6pm on 14th February.

We had loved the food when we were in Sri Lanka, I am a fiend for my spicy food and the range of particularly vegetarian curries on offer was one of the things which had made our holiday particularly memorable. I was particularly happy to find a country where it was acceptable to have curry for breakfast, lunch and tea.

The family run restaurant’s strapline was Pracida’s Sri Lankan Tapas. When I enquired about who Pracida was, it turns out that it was the owners Mum who had inspired the restaurant after helping her Mum with preparing food and watching her prepare meals.

Brook’s had recently moved from smaller premises on Brook Street to where Sachi’s Indian restaurant had once been situated in the Moors Shopping Centre Ilkley. The décor had changed to rough wooden panelling, brass lights and interesting large canvas artworks by Jen Thomas on the walls. It was light and welcoming when we walked in, walking past the bar where we were greeted and shown to our table.

I ordered a local IPA and my wife a glass or Rose. We were then handed the menu and left to make our choices.

There was a limited choice of appetisers with three appetisers including a dhal, garlic ciabatta and tempura king prawns. We decided to share tempura prawns.

There was a choice of sharing plate starters – a seafood platter, a vegan platter and a mixed platter. Whilst the selections on each platter sounded wonderful, we spotted one being delivered to another table and it was huge. We decided that we wouldn’t finish our mains if we went down this route so gave the starter platters a miss.

The rest of the menu consisted of small plate tapas size dishes. There was a really eclectic mix of Sri Lankan and South East Asian dishes. We were advised by our waiter that 2-3 dishes each and a side would be enough for the two of us. We agreed to share and settled on 5 dishes and a vegetable rice as a side (I wasn’t sure it was going to be enough but my wife said we could always order more!).

There was a great choice, but as we remembered eating mainly vegetarian dishes when we had been in Sri Lanka, we chose 3 vegetarian dishes, a prawn dish and a chicken dish. I must give a shout out to the staff as even though they were very young, they were really helpful, friendly and efficient offering advice and an excellent level of service.

The Sri Lankan tapas arrived promptly and we really felt that we had made a great choice with our selections. They were small plates.

First up was a Chicken Kottu. Having tried this on holiday I can vouch for its authenticity. It is more of a streetfood dish in Sri Lankan. It consists of chicken with eggs, stir fried and then cooked in a curry sauce mixed with shredded carrots, spring onions  and leeks. Very tasty.

We then went for a Devilled King Prawn dish. This was tiger prawns which had been cooked in a sweet chilli and soy sauce. It was rich and spicy.

Our vegetarian options included an Aubergine Moju. This was probably my favourite dish of the evening, A traditional Sri Lankan dish with aubergine which had been fried then cooked in a coconut sauce. This was served with a small portion of cous cous mixed with raisens. The aubergine

Next up was a Ceylon Stir Fry. This consisted of vegetables stir fried with chilli, ginger and soy sauce mixed with rice noodles. This was delicious and quite a light dish.

Finally our last small plate dish was a Green Bean & Cashew Nut Curry. This was almost satayesque, served in quite a creamy sauce. Tender green beans had been cooked with whole cashew nuts in this mild Sri Lankan curry sauce.

It was a lovely meal – there was such a variety of flavours, textures and tastes. I think that the restaurant does wonderful justice to Sri Lankan cuisine and it was great to re-live the memories of the flavours of our previous holiday.

With 10% tip the total cost was £81 with a couple of drinks each which seemed very reasonable.