Cochin Marine

49 Grosvenor Road, Royal Tunbridge Wells
Kent TN1 2AY 01892 616742

Lurking near the busy roundabout of Grosvenor Road, Mount Ephraim, Cochin Marine doesn't look like the kind of place you'd take the wife out to for a romantic dinner. But seeing as I like Indian food, and the wife likes seafood, it would seem like this would be the kind of place which would make us both happy.
We have to give them half a point straight off the bat because they gave both the wife and myself a pint glass of Cobra - she gets very irked by this half pint business which certain other Indians around town engage in.
For starters, although my onion bhajis were light and moist and delicious, the wife ordered a seafood soup which was so tasty I ended up stealing most of it. For mains I had the crab meat a la cochin, which was spiced to the degree of being tasty rather than painful. Its all too common for Indian restaurants to cook their fish within an inch of its life, but these people are experts, so my wife's whole fish had been cooked in a banana leaf to retain its tenderness. Because our mains were dry they gave us a little pot of curry sauce to wet things up a bit - very nice.
I couldn't eat my kerala crepes because they were too heavy on the cardamom for my personal taste, but happily this meant I could wheedle my wife into surrendering her mango lassi to me. Result! Incidentally, if you happen to have not tried a mango lassi, then you really must put this on your to-do list. And there are worse places to do it at than this place. The staff are attentive and knowledgeable, the food is just that little bit different, and forty quid for a three course meal is a pretty good deal.

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Comments

[Rachel]

Newly settled in Tunbridge Wells, we decided to visit Cochin Marine as a form of a recce for when good friends of ours, who are vegetarians, come to stay from London.

Indian is not my cuisine of choice - countless forgettable curryhouses in London have made my feelings toward it lukewarm. My husband, on the other hand, is its biggest fan - as a result we are each, in our own way, very hard to please with curries: I expect the worst, he the best.

The meal we had at Cochin Marine was easily the best Indian food I have tasted; the Fish Mole my husband had was particularly exceptional - everything deliciously fresh, with distinct flavours and tastes. We over ordered but at £45 for 2 courses and extra sides each, and 3 pints of Cobra, we felt it very good value.

We rolled out very happy, and will be back regularly - with or without the vegetarians!

Thank you, Cochin Marine.

[richn]

Much better than the Patak's catering slop that most "Indian" restaurants serve. Too much meat and fish on the menu for me but still well worth a visit.