Delectable Ride On The Orient Express

A delectable The Good Life Chew Pan Asian Café It’s noisy. It’s buzzing and very alive. It lets you interact with your food. And yes, an air of celebration hangs in every corner of this café. Chew Pan Asian Café is your sunshine place if you like the idea of experimenting with pan Asian cuisine. And with Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Indonesian fare being whipped up by their respective expert chefs, all under one roof, Chew is indeed an Asian food gourmand’s imagination come true. The café also features an open kitchen as well as a live Teppanyaki grill counter decked up with glass jars filled with spices, making the whole experience of food indulgence collaborative and rather kaleidoscopic Ambience and Service Décor is kitsch meet class. It pulls you in, what with Asian themed pop-coloured posters with lively lines adorning the walls, sitting right next to black and white Aztec-patterned tiles, contrasted with Dholpur stone. The pop of the walls is married with wooden furniture. Tables are paired with wooden swings and turquoise blue chairs. Pictures of Japan and Buddha in retro colours lends the place a cheerfully quirky appeal. And service is just right, too—attentive and informative. The waiters are armed with suggestions and urge you to try their specials, based on your preferences. Menu Stars We ordered a fair amount of food, trying to sample their various menus, and dishes arrived so promptly that we ran out of room on our table. There wasn'tathing we disliked, really. But I could say that our start was lukewarm. We started with crystal chicken dumplings and crystal green dumplings that didn’t prepare us at all for what was to follow. Things picked up instantly with Chicken Aniseed and Som Tam veg salad, a raw papaya salad with cherry tomatoes, bird's eye chillies and Thai spices. A mouth-watering Sushi Platter followed. Now, I am a massive sushi fan and that also makes me very critical about the sushi on my plate. I must say, this one satiated me rather well. And the wasabi served with it was just right as well—not too pungent, not too feeble. Full points for the platter! Salmon with a portion of vegetables chosen from the Teppan menu was done perfectly, but what surprised me was that the meat lover in me was actually freaking out on their grilled mixed vegetables—a big portion of very flavourful crispy veggies. We wrapped up our sumptuous and a rather elaborate meal with the best ever Banoffee Pie I have ever had. The Big Chill has competition, indeed! Chew is yet to get its liquor license in place, so we stuck to mocktails. We binged on Dirty Granate, a pomegranate-based refreshing mocktail.

Having served up so much food adulation, I know it’s only my duty to help you whip up some of these comforting dishes. Here are the recipes for three of the dishes that I enjoyed every taste of… Ingredients 50 gm fresh pomegranate seeds 15 ml pomegranate juice 2-3 drops lime juice Method Crush the fresh pomegranate well. Pour juice in a shaker and add all the ingredients. Serve in a martini glass rimmed with celery salt. Dirty Granate A pomegranate drink with pomegranate and more pomegranate. Pink and pure!

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Makes for 1 serving Ingredients 120 gm shredded green papaya 2 tbsp toasted peanuts 30 gm peeled garlic 1-2 fresh bird's eye chillies 1 tsp fish sauce ½ piece palm sugar 4 cherry tomatoes 1 tbsp lime juice 1-2 tbsp Thai string beans cut into 1-inch sticks Method Roughly crush a small handful of unsalted peanuts with mortar and pestle. Set aside. Wipe the mortar and pestle clean. Melt palm sugar in a small pan on low or medium heat, adding 2 tablespoons of water. The cooking process should form a shiny and thick syrup. This makes it easier to mix the sugar with the salad. Peel the papaya, shred it with a shredder into thin strips and soak them in cold water while you prepare the rest of the salad. This makes the papaya crunchier and gets rid of any excess starch. Cut the green beans into one-inch pieces. Throw away the ends. Take the chillies and peeled garlic and give them a gentle bash with the mortar and pestle. You should see bits and pieces, not a purée. Add the fish sauce and continue crushing. Add the crushed peanuts and mix well. Add shredded papaya and continue bashing, but not too hard—just enough so the mixture soaks up the flavours. Use a bigger spoon as a support tool—that way you can shift the salad in the mortar and it won’t fall out while crushing and mixing. Add the liquid palm sugar, tomatoes, beans, lime juice and fish sauce. Continue light crushing. Shift with the spoon and mix a little more. Now your salad is ready to be served!

SOM TAM SALAD Eating most salads is a punishment. Or at best, a forced decision spiked up with a delicious dressing. Despite being a pure vegetarian salad, this one is a treat. Makes for 2 servings The Good Life Lemongrass Saffron Tea Crispy Lotus Dynamite Uramaki—crabstick, avocado, green tobico, Japanese rice Chew Pan Asian Café First Floor, M16, Outer Circle, Connaught Place, New Delhi On my Chew wish list Ingredients 200 gm chicken breast, sliced and marinated with cornflour and egg white 10 gm corn flour 1 egg white only ½ tsp garlic chopped ½ tsp oyster sauce ½ tsp dark soya Salt to taste 200 ml refined oil 1 gm sugar 2 drops Maggi seasoning 10 gm aniseed, roasted and powdered 50 ml chicken stalk 1 drop chilli oil Potato flour mix 100 gm spinach, crisped fried with big pieces of sugar to avoid the bitter taste Aniseed Chicken A simple chicken recipe with exotic flavours, this one will have you feeling sprightly in a jiffy. Makes for 2 servings Method Shallow fry the chicken and strain. Add garlic and ginger to the heated oil in a wok. Add chicken, oyster sauce, dark soy, salt, sugar, and finally the Maggi seasoning. Now, add the chicken stock. Add 5 grams of aniseed and finish with potato flour mix on high flame. Add a drop of chilli oil. Serve on a platter with a boundary of crispy, fried spinach and sprinkle the remaining five grams of aniseed. Ano-Tai, an authentic Chinese fine-dining restaurant at Jaypee Vasant Continental, offers Sichaun and Cantonese cuisine, deliciously cooked by Master Chef Eagle Wu. With more than 17 years of experience in hospitality industry, Chef Eagle Wu has mastered his culinary skills in Sichuan and Hunan cuisine, Chongqing Hot Pot and medicinal food. His Indian journey which began in 2006 is adorned with many accolades—he has been bestowed with HT City’s Best Chinese food award consecutively in 2006, 2007 and 2009. I had the good fortune of experiencing that expertise recently. Ambience and Service The ambience of the restaurant is nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it is almost boring and made me rethink about staying on. But I am glad I did. It’s old-world, but it lacked the punch the vintage vibe brings in. However, the Dimsum lounge, which serves an unmatched Dimsum menu with true Chinese flourish, is interesting. A singer belting out perky numbers brought in a whiff of romance, but I wish she was not positioned in one corner of the restaurant, from where most diners could not even see her. Menu Stars The hot-meter of cuisine here is high and you must choose smartly if spicy food is not your zone. I started my affair with Chef Eagle Wu’s soulful food with spicy hot BBQ squid on a sizzler and bean curd soup with crab meat. The appetizer was to die for and the soup was so delicious that even my threeyear-old guzzled it all up. I didn’t enjoy the Mongolian meat grill or their signature golden thread prawns with tomatoes as both these dishes lacked innovation as well as the charm of classic flavours, but sautéed water chestnuts with baby corn and fresh chillies in BBQ sauce, and Beijing duck made up for the dip in delight. Sautéed haricot beans with Sichuan spices served up the true Hunan flavours that I have rarely had the opportunity to savour in the recent past. I finished my Hunan affair with Singapore style rice noodles with BBQ chicken and Chinese pork sausage—a fine finish to a good meal. But the presentation of food, I must add, could do with an update. It did no justice to the delicious treats that were served up one after the other. Here’s how you can take my favourites from my plate to yours… Ano-Tai at Jaypee Vasant Continental The Good Life Ingredients 800 gm rock lobster 15 gm cornflour Salt to taste 2 gm white pepper 1 egg 15 gm garlic cloves 20 gm jie jie sauce 5 gm ginger, sliced 5 ml oyster sauce 10 gm black mushroom (sliced) 10 gm diced onion 10 gm diced capsicum 50 ml stock Salt to taste 2 gm chicken powder 1 gm sugar 5 ml dark soya sauce 10 ml cornflour blended in water 10 gm spring onion Method Marinate the lobster with salt, white pepper and corn flour. Keep aside. Deep fry lobster in hot oil and drain. Heat oil in a wok. Add garlic cloves, ginger and jie jie sauce and sauté it to extract its flavour. Add fried lobster along with diced onion, mushroom and capsicum. Add stock and put the seasoning along with oyster sauce and dark soya sauce. Bring it to boil and thicken with corn flour. Garnish with spring onions and serve on a hot sizzler.

SAUTÉED LOBSTER ON A SIZZLER WITH GARLIC CLOVES Dough Ingredients 50 gm wheat starch 50 gm potato starch Method In a bowl take both the flours— wheat starch and potato starch. Add equal quantities of cold and hot water, enough to make a thin batter. Now place the bowl with the flour mix over a boiling container and cook the flour mix till the dough gets sticky. Remove from fire and cover with another bowl and now make equal-sized balls.

Filling Ingredients 1/2 cup finely chopped water chestnut 1/2 cup finely chopped boiled corn kernels 1 tsp refined oil Salt to taste 20 gm sugar Method Chop all the vegetables. You can use a food processor to get them finely chopped. Heat a wok and add refined oil. You can also use a mix of sesame oil and olive oil. Add seasonings, including sugar. Now mix well, ensuring vegetables are crunchy and not mashed up. Allow to cool. Once the veggies have cooled, take the ready ball of flour and roll into a round sheet. Add a spoonful of vegetables in the centre. Flip the sheet onto the other side so as to make a "D" shape and then seal the edge. If you make fresh homemade sheets, the edges will stick without water. It is only when you use ready sheets that you need to wet the circumference of the sheet, so the edges seal together. Steam for 10 minutes and serve hot.

CORN AND WATER CHESTNUT DUMPLINGS Double braised pork shank meat with black mushrooms Sliced fish with chilli beer sauce on a sizzler Mixed vegetables sautéed with chilli wasabi ANO-TAI Vasant Vihar, Munirka Marg, Basant Lok, New Delhi. On my Ano-Tai wish list Bathe your home in the warmth of these lovely lamps that match the festive mood of the season. Their dazzling designs will add beauty to your special spaces. Light Magic The Good Life 1. Tulip Tiffany Lamp, Tiffany Studios, price on request. 2. Tatou T1, Patricia Urquiola, price on request. 3. Seletti, Liberty London, `12,500 approximately. 4. Kelly TA2 Table Lamp, Studio Italia, `3,56,625 approximately. 5. Table lamps, Beyond Design, price on request. 6. Sigma Lamp, Casa Paradox, price on request. 7. The Lancaster, Lancaster Lights, price on request. 8. Gold-Plated Crystal Bulb Table Lamp, Lee Broom, `22,000 approximately. 9. Divina, `1,61,700 approximately. 10. Foil lamp, House of Raro, price on request. 11. Volière Tambour Bird Cage Table Lamp, Mathieu Challieres, `36,800 approximately. 12. Greystone Indigo Lamp, Scalamandre Maison by Port 68, `42,300 approximately. 13. Globo Lamp, Baroncello, price on request.