Amongst the maze of tarmac, parking cones, constantly new traffic layouts and heras fencing lies a colourful bright oasis of flavour.

Edinburgh’s East End is a mess with roadworks from St James Centre and Leith Street all the way down Leith Walk; but amongst this chaos you’ll find Kahani Indian Street Food who seem to be taking all this in their stride.

Beautiful outdoor floral arrangements greet you. The vivid orange marigolds and the fan display of palm fronds invite you in. It’s a large venue, with floor to ceiling windows that bring the light inside.

Covid regulations mean that all staff wear masks and there are transparent plastic pop up banners between tables. Although you feel quite safe, it doesn’t make the restaurant look nice as the banners are flimsy and tend to be knocked over easily. However, they do seat people as far apart as possible and the space doesn’t feel overcrowded. There are hand sanitizing stations at the entrance.

Kahani is BYOB (bring your own bottle) so I took along a delicious bottle of Prosecco that I had tried at Fizz Friday with Wine Events Scotland. This Montelvini Prosecco is fresh, fruity and young; quite floral with lots of tart apples and went so well with the rich full spice flavours to come.

I always find that eating something whilst trying to navigate a menu, helps. Fresh crunchy poppadoms and dips of cucumber raita, mango chutney, onion chutney and achar (pickle) certainly start to send you on a journey to spice town.

Eventually deciding to try food on either side of the spice scale, we settled on

PRAWN KOLHAPURI - prawns marinated with royal cumin, curry leaves and coated in crisp chick pea flour. Well say hello to mouthful after mouthful of juicy tender absolutely perfectly cooked decent sized prawns packed with subtle spice to start and then a great ol kick at the end. Give me a bowl or two of these any day!

TANDOORI LAMB CHOPS - marinated with honey and fresh green chilli and served with green chutney. This is the one dish you have to order; you will be blown away with every bite. Three succulent spicy lamb chops where the spices play on your lips and then leave a beautiful long spicy medley on the taste buds.

BUTTER CHICKEN  - a staple Indian dish with a smooth and velvety vine tomato, honey and cream based sauce. On the mild side, the textures were spot on. The sauce was thin enough to spoon over the juicy chicken bites but thick enough to evenly coat each piece.

KODAMBAKKAM CURRY  - fresh coconut, panch puran (5 spices) and finished with cream. So good, I ordered this as a take-away. Quite hot and a very spicy punch, an absolute winner of a dish.

No Indian food is complete without a Peshwari naan and a side of rice. The naan arrived roasting hot with the butter gently melting over the bubbled and blistered dough. Most of the almond paste lay in the centre of the naan and not evenly spread throughout, but this made each mouthful taste different and when used to scoop up morsels of curry, sauce and rice it was a flavour surprise each time.

With the Prosecco finished and out bellies filled with spicy goodness, we couldn’t resist this incredible looking ice-cream sundae.

This is the ICE CREAM SUNDAE BONANZA - our inner child came out and was delighted to indulge in ice-cream, cream, marshmallows, strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce and every other sweetie goodness they could find. Dive the spoon down to the bottom and see what you pull up … every spoonful made us happy!

Kahani Indian Street Food is one of the best Indian restaurants I have dined at in a long time. The food is consistently great, dish after dish. The food is cooked superbly well, the spice profiles aren’t superficial, they penetrate the ingredients and you can tell they have been carefully and lovingly made by someone who knows Indian cooking.

I highly recommend eating at Kahani.

Kahani Indian Street Food, 10 Antigua Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3NH. Tel : 0131 5581947 www.kahanirestaurant.co.uk

My Spoon Award : Gold Spoon 9/10

I was invited by Kahani to review their menu. Food and drink were complimentary but the views are very much my own.