Going Bamboo

The menu is a journey down the Silk Route, picking up a multitude of dishes from across the Orient, though concentrating on Chinese fare; the nation’s recent Western leanings nicely reflected in a large, variegated alcohol menu. The prices are capitalistically competitive with dishes at an average price of around Rs 350.

Given the array of choices, it takes us a while to narrow our starters selection down to the Slow Fried Chicken Basil Chicken Spring Rolls and the Calamari Pepper and Salt supplemented with a cross-section of dimsums. No broad, oil-drenched morsels these, the spring rolls are long and taut, and brim-filled with chunks of delicious basil-scented chicken. The calamari is accompanied with a piping hot chilli garlic sauce and mixed together, it is a cocktail of textures and flavours. The dim sums, comprising chicken, prawn and water chestnut varietals go down swimmingly with their three accompanying sauces — a zesty celery concoction, homemade chilli sauce and a burnt garlic offering, each lending a distinct coating to the hot pockets.

The mains comprise Chicken in Black Bean Sauce and Stir Fried Prawns in Oyster Sauce with our favoured Chilli Garlic Noodles. The douchi (the traditional name for the fermented soy bean paste so favoured by the Chinese) sauce is pungent and salty. The chicken pieces in it having enthusiastically soaked in the flavours of the so-called ‘black bean’. The prawn is a fiery affair consisting of large shellfish tossed with summer veggies and is equally riveting and it’s with little embarrassment and more gusto that we mix it together with the spunky noodles to create a kind of glorified Chinese khichdi. The results are expectedly palatable.

Meal for two: Rs 1,400  (including taxes)

Address: K-12, Outer Circle, Connaught Place. Contact: 33036792