• Sat. Nov 16th, 2024

Spotted UK

Local News Reports

A trip around the world in one Liverpool postcode

BySpotted UK

Dec 31, 2023

Liverpool's L7 offers food from every country you can think of and then probably some more.

On the edge of the city centre you'll find Kensington a cosmopolitan area where people from across the world live and this is reflected in the restaurants dotted along its major streets.While it may not have much in common with the London Borough of the same name; it certainly has a growing and diverse restaurant scene that, I think, could rival London's Kensington.

I recently went on a separate culinary journey around the world in Liverpool's L8 postcode and I had so much fun doing that I was keen to go on another adventure. I decided that there was no better place to cover for a sequel than Kensington which is an area of Liverpool that offers a melting pot of cuisines and I wanted to give them a try.

READ MORE: Try Liverpool Echo Premium for 99p with no ads, fun puzzles and brilliant new features

READ MORE: 'Correct' date to take down your Christmas decorations

The bustling Edge Lane is for many people the main road into the city and it was where I decided to start my journey. It may have been raining outside but inside Baja the food transports you to sunny Mexico. Baja is run by brothers Gobal Adsikair who runs the front of house while Sanjay cooks the food.

Gobal and Sanjay moved to Liverpool from Nepal in 2003 and cooked many different cuisines before deciding to focus on Mexican food. Gobal said: "I enjoy Mexican food because it's got loads of different vegetables in it and I like the drinks as well like a margarita. Everything works together really well."

Baja opened in 2013, under the name Fajita, they had a restaurant in Liverpool One and currently have a stall in Renshaw Street Food Market but the Kensington restaurant remains the original restaurant.

The 43-year-old Gobal said: "We chose Kensington because the rent was cheaper so it wasn't a risky investment to open up the shop here. We’re doing really well now and people travel to visit us and the areas has improved massively in the past couple of years."

Gobal couldn't pick a favourite thing off the menu insisting everything was great; so I decided to try a chimichanga which is a burrito that is deep fried and a staple of Tex-Mex cuisine. I went for the beef chilli version and it came with a tasty side of rice; if everything on Baha menu is as flavourful as that was I can see why Gobal said everything was so good.

Beef Chimichanga at Baja

He also insisted I try their homemade churros which were a very nice sweet treat.

A few minutes walk away from Edge Lane you'll find Prescot Road which offers an equally diverse range of restaurant options. The jewel in the crown of restaurants along Prescot Road has to be Akshaya- The Picture Dome. Situated inside an old cinema; the exterior of the building is eye-catching and really stands out as a local landmark.

The interior is equally breath-taking and looks and feels extremely high-end; which is exactly what Akshaya intended. Rohan Prabhakaran is the operational manager at the restaurant, he said: "We've been here for three years but before that we had a restaurant up the road for ten years. We wanted a fine dining experience but we didn't want to go into town so we went in here."

The restaurant offers an extensive menu with all the Indian staples but this isn't your standard curry house and Akshaya offers a range of dishes I hadn't ever heard of. Rohan said: "We serve Indian and south Indian cuisine and some more regional dishes like our devilled dishes which are from Sri Lanka. Our speciality is dishes you won't get anywhere else in Liverpool."

Pani Puri at Akshaya

One of those dishes, which came highly recommended, was Pani Puri. The starter is a popular Indian street food which includes a small poppadum-like shells served with a side of potato and chickpeas and Jal Jeera water which is water flavoured with cumin.

When the waitress placed the Pani Puri in front of me I had no idea how to eat it so I, rather embarrassingly, had to ask the waitress how to eat it and she explained you put the sides inside the shells and eat them. I could see why the Pani Puri came so highly recommended as they were a delightfully light and tasty starter.

The 28-year-old Rohan said: "Pani Puri is a really popular Indian street food and we also do a yogurt chaat bomb version."

Rohan Prabhakaran is the operational manager at Akshaya

For my main, I went for the Lamb Rogan Josh with rice and roti, which was equally tasty as the Pani Puri and I washed it down with a pint of the restaurant's house lager.

The final part of my journey took me a little bit of Kensington to Raggas Caribbean Café on Smithdown Road. While the Jamaican restaurant is on the edge of Lodge Lane; through a weird quirk of postcode geography Raggas has an L7 postcode. The restaurant opened in 2006 and is a firm favourite among Scousers and having lived in Smithdown when I was a student it was somewhere I passed nearly every day for three years so I thought now was the perfect excuse to try it.

To start with I decided to try the Lamb Jamaican pattie which was kind of like a Cornish pasty but with more spices so it was a lot more flavourful. For my main I went with the Jerk Chicken and rice with peas (which I think were actually kidney beans). This was as tasty as the pattie and for just £7 for the pattie, jerk chicken and a can of pop; it was extremely good value for money and explains why it is such a firm favourite with locals.

Jerk Chicken with rice at Raggas

Even at a Thursday lunchtime the café was really busy which is a true testament to how good Raggas is.

The restaurants included in here are just a flavour of what is on offer at L7; there are loads of other excellent restaurants in the area that could have been included. All I can do is encourage you to visit Kensington and the surrounding areas for a meal and you won't be disappointed.

Don't miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the Echo Daily newsletter here