Eat Out To Help Out Series: Part 6 - The Coconut Tree
Stepping inside the doors to The Coconut Tree in Cheltenham feels just like walking into a warm embrace.
Gone are rows of cool white terraced houses, replaced with a riot of colour, music, laughter and the cosy aroma of simmering spices.
It’s a heady mix that injects a weekend vibe into whatever day of the week it is. In our case, a mid-week treat on a Wednesday.
Staff dance while they wait for drinks to be poured at the shiny coin-decorated bar. Newspaper pages create quirky, colourful ceiling decorations and, looking around, pretty much all the diners are smiley and completely absorbed by the food.
Everything looks as it was before Covid turned 2020 upside down, with just a little more disinfectant and plenty of shields and face masks.
Disposable paper menus sit alongside cocktail booklets and tin cans are full of cutlery and kitchen towel. It’s not fancy, but it really is fabulous.
I went for the Beach Boy cocktail, which is a bargain at a tenner for two. Or £6 for one, if you’re less greedy than me!
An ice-topped tangy mix of Mahiki coconut rum, coconut savour and pineapple soda came with a cheeky glace cherry, wedge of fresh pineapple and red and white striped straw. If I closed my eyes as I took a sip I could’ve been somewhere exotic. It was, quite simply, a taste of sunshine - wonderful!
Our smiley, casually dressed, waiter recommended choosing three dishes each and a hopper bowl to pile it all into. Dishes come out from the kitchen as they’re cooked and we loved getting piping-hot dishes continually brought out to us.
The simple white enamel dishes belie the complexity of flavours they hold. Our palettes danced in delight at the extraordinary food served here.
A fusion of herbs, spices and just plain good cooking meant we feasted like kings.
We dived into creamy parippu dhal (£4) flecked with chilli. It’s not a pretty dish - how do you beautify red lentils cooked in coconut milk? But it’s all about flavour and this one made a great mixer to go with cheesy colombo (£6) a spicy, sticky sauce-coated fried cheese cubes mix. It also combined well with brinjals (£5). The lightly fried aubergine was slightly caramelised and mixed with coriander and big chunks of red onion which went down a treat.
The star of the show though was the scrumptious egg hopper (£3.50). This beautifully light coconut milk pancake, with a fried egg nestled in the centre, was surrounded with dots of coconut sambol, caramelised cinnamon-dusted onions and Sri Lankan salsa. We wanted to ask the chef how to make it - it was that good.
We chucked on big spoonfuls of colourful curried chicken kotthu (£7) that was stunningly fresh with plenty of chopped spring onions and grated carrot. In total contrast, we also heaped on rich black pork (£7) that arrived in its own mini Le Creuset-esque pot. Lifting the lid on the most glorious glossy pork belly, seductively slow-cooked in dark roasted spices was heavenly.
It was probably too much to have ordered tumeric and cardamom yellow rice (£3) but we cheerfully ploughed on - like the heroes we are.
By the time we’d eaten all we could, there was still heaps left, so we asked for one of their brown cardboard boxes to take it home. It’ll make a delicious cold lunch which we decided was a strategic bonus and not at all that we have eyes far bigger than our tummies!
This joyful spot is the perfect place to banish any back to school or autumnal blues. It’s a blast of sunshine that’ll leave you walking out with a spring in your step.
For more information visit www.thecoconut-tree.com
