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Cheers to a Chinese thali
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Why not go the whole hog in Indian-Chinese cuisine? Try the Chinese Platter at Hotel Abad
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Bon Appetite Sweet, sour, spicy, and fiery hot
Chinese food purists will take a toss like sesame seeds on chicken at the Chinese Platter food fest at Hotel Abad, Chullickal. And the adventurous will love it like the lip-smacking sweet and sour sauce. Our experiments with food have given us nouvea
u cuisines and pan-global presentation styles. Here the Chinese Platter is a Chinese thali. Yes, you have read it right, a Chinese thali. Forget bowls, chopsticks and green tea, the food comes in a thali with ‘katoris’ full of Chinese ‘koottan’. A novel idea of serving the assorted accompaniments with the staple rice or noodles. The menu is fixed with a wide range of choices within the four food combos. The Seafood combo at Rs.195 will allow you the choice of prawns, pepper fish and nutty cauliflower with either seafood or shrimp and mushroom fried rice or noodles. You can have this or any of the four other combinations in this group. So you can choose from chilly hot fish, prawn in mustard chilli, fish in garlic soya sauce, squid rings all with the rice-noodle combination. The same goes for the chicken combo at Rs. 150. Here with four accompaniment choices there is Singapore or Szechwan fried rice. The lamb and steak combo is at Rs.175.
Wholesome
The thali cannot get more wholesome than this. The helpings are big and even hearty appetites like yours truly was coping to finish. But it’s not here that the meal ends. There are four dessert choices from caramel custard (not Chinese style), Fruit salad, chocolate brownie and the best bet the date pancake with ice cream. Go for it, it takes the cake. The only problem is with the name which should be a fruit pancake with ice-cream. It is a fantastic improvement on the regular date pancake with shreds of apple, pineapple and date, laced with honey, ensconced in square pancake parcels, served with ice cream. It is a delightful finish to a wholesome Chinese thali.
The whole Chinese thali experience comes with a soup, two salads and a starter. The soups are served quickly and the wait is not long. The starters follow, which is bread pakoras for the vegetarians and meat mince balls for the non vegetarians, the latter is yummy. With the soup and starter done quickly you have the interesting Chinese calendar to go through on your paper mats. Which year of the Chinese calendar were your born? What are you-the rat, horse, dragon, ox.... what are your traits and whom do you share your birthday with, will keep you busy till the well laid out thali complete with katoris arrives. And then you begin your big, big meal. Considering the quantity it is value for money, considering the taste, if you are game for Indian Chinese it’s here in its authentic avatar. Chef Rateesh has done perfect justice to it and if it is Indian Chinese then it should be served in thalis. A bold new way of presentation and convenient to eat. If you miss chutney, raita you can have the sauces but believe me you will miss nothing for there’s plenty to choose from the large helpings and a fantastic dessert to end with. Your taste buds go through an entire range of tastes from spicy to peppery to fiery hot and these are the right tastes for our palate. So here’s true hindi-chini bahi bahi on the Chinese thali. Full marks for the presentation, quick attentive service and for the date/fruit pancake. The food festival is on till November 11 for both lunch and dinner.
PRIYADERSHINI S.
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