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It’s a chef’s special

Hot and sweet Chef Chow Choen Ta conjuring up culinary magic

In these days of snazzy chefs, celeb and TV hosts, chef Chow Choen Ta is a pleasant change. He is minus the flamboyance that comes with the hiss of sizzling food, the snobbery of plate dressing, the tense style of finger foods, the oddities of fusion and the outlandish stretches of fancy food. He has the single winning ingredient for good food. Love for cooking and serving.

He speaks little, smiles a lot and lets his food do the talking. But he does tell you a thing or two about the Chinese Food Festival on at Bubbles Café till May 17, which he has planned and prepared: One that it is 80 per cent authentic, Chinese and Thai, and two that there is no chilli chicken!

So are you going to miss your pet chilli chicken and sweet and sour pork or are you ready to give the common flavours of the Sino-Indian food Joint Venture a miss and try the chef’s special.

I go with the chef. There is a wide choice of soups and hors d’oeuvres. And I am in a mood to try. I go for a light soup, looking at the big, colourful buffet spread temptingly in front. Tom Jew is a clear vegetable soup with a burnt garlicky flavour and warms me up almost like an aperitif. Crunchy sesame vegetables follow as appetisers and I am ready to gorge.

Actually oriental culinary tradition comes with etiquette, propriety, formality and reverence with stress on elegant fine dining.

A strong food history based on respect for food, its medicinal value, a fine blend of vegetables and meats in tune with digestion and healthy living, a Zen like culinary tradition from some parts of China, a fiery hot food lineage from other parts, Chinese food is not the best for buffets but a la carte. But hurried diners and a demand to meet, the buffet is the best bet. And Chef Ta is at his best here. So I gorge heaping my plate time and again.

I try the entrees with steamed rice. Hunan style fish with red chilli flakes sitting pretty on the fiery hot sauce is just perfect foil to the plain rice. I take a judicious mix of meat and vegetables going for Pork slices in black bean sauce with Cantonese style Asian greens.

One thing is clear. The buffet gives you a chance to try the many flavours from the different parts of China. Canton, Peking, Sichuan and Hunan are all there and the colours of the food simply thrilling. Green, yellow, Red, dark red, browns and maroons, the tempestuous mix is dramatic. I simply loved the sweet basil garnish and the lemon grass of Thai food. The staple Thai favourites of red and Green curry are there to relish.

I am still looking for reasons to eat more, so I chose random foods with names that tickle my senses. Bang Bang Ji is a salad of steamed chicken with chilli sesame. Will let Buddha’s delights be a mystery for you.

And now to take sweet revenge you can go for a choice of traditional desserts and a few off the rack, which is a must in buffet, for the simple reason that they cater to a mix of people and so to different palates. From date pancake, toffee syrup fruits, coconut jelly and red bean pancake, I try the last. Red bean pancake is something which I have never had before but I find it close in taste to our payar payasam made with jaggery, except that it is a pancake. The chef recommends Darsaan, a flat crispy noodle tossed in honey syrup with sesame seeds. I see two young kids relishing the crunchiness licking the honey off their lips in delight.

The dinner buffet is large and on a rotational menu for four days of the week, the food loop continuing for the next two weeks. The finale is a fusion of the most popular dishes, which I feel will be a gastronomic delight.

The buffet is priced at Rs.550 plus taxes and holds good the Chinese truism, heaven loves a man/ woman who eats well!

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