The Chinese New Year is here and it turns out, the only place (or few) in the city celebrating it is the Golden Dragon at Taj Coromandel. Looks like there aren’t many Chinese restaurants left in the city. With the Pan Asian wave, the good old Indo-Chinese is hard to come by these days.
Having had a nice dinner here a week or so before I was invited for this festive menu, I realized that I do miss this breed of Chinese restaurants. Yes, the Pan Asians are great, but I guess this cuisine has been so ingrained in us that it has become the sort of comfort eat out food, if that category even exists.
Good old dim sums started the proceedings for this exhaustive menu that we were privy to. Water chestnut filled ones started proceedings, but the mustard dip stood out for this crunchy dish. The Bengali roots of the executive chef was playing its cards here. The other two stand outs in the appetizers were the carrot puffs and the brillaint prawn rolls. With a wafer thin sheet of dough covering a thick filling of prawn meat with a single prawn dangling for garnish, these prawn rolls were outstanding. The soft filling of Kalian with its green colours seeping through the casing while the garlic added flavour from within was another refreshing one.
Main course is what brought back those memories. The ones where I was yearing to eat out and we ended up in Chinese because that was considered eating out, a good two decacdes ago. Crispy fried chickens, shredded lamb, those soy soaked cabagges and the noodles loaded with veggies were all a feeling of nostalgia.
But memories took a back seat with the arrival of dessert. An oustanding chocolate dimsum served with an even more outstanding candied ginger and strawberry ice cream. Shamelessly, I asked for a second helping, feeling like Oliver Twist, but thankfully our hosts weren’t anywhere close to Mr. Bumble. I could have this ice cream every single day. My only feedback to the chef for the entire meal was, “Please bring this ice cream from the festive to the regular menu.” Will he?
The festive menu is on till the 15th of February but I do hope the ice cream becomes immortal!
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