Chinese Feasts was a restaurant on MM Road in Frazer Town, in the not-so-busy part of MM Road. And before I start off about this experience, I have to state that I've been told Chinese Feasts has closed - the owner was having problems with the rent being raised exponentially by the landlord. Sometime in the month of October, I was invited by my friend Chung Tham (a third gen Chinese Indian) for dinner along with his family at a restaurant that is owned by a person of Chinese origin, and we were going to be eating some real Hakka Chinese food, and not the MSG loaded and/or manchurian dishes we usually get at most 'Chinese' joints.We started off our meal with a soup - battered meatball (beef) soup with tiny shrimps in them as well. The beef is 'battered' - actually, thrown against the walls of a steel bowl repeatedly. the tenderisation that happens and the resultant texture is different from what you get using a meat tenderiser. The meat is them rolled into meatballs and cooked and added to the soup. When I tasted it, I was amazed to note that the texture was actually more tender that traditional meatballs that I've eaten. Since the dishes served were all off the menu, I don't know the exact name.
The next appetiser was pan-fried chicken momos. This one had fillings that tasted quite nice, but I wasn't too sure why they pan-fried it when steaming it was an option. I didn't ask that though. I guess I'll never know now :)
The food just kept on coming. We were served a chicken dish that had a sauce that seemed a mix of tomato, vinegar, ginger and chillies. The ginger though was pungent and strong, but was a more mellow. The addition of sesame seeds, to me, seemed unnecessary, but who cares - the dish tasted great. Chinese version of chilli chicken!
The chicken was followed by fish - again, in a sauce that was more glazed, but the fish was very nicely cooked, and came apart very easily in the mouth. The flavour wasn't spicy, and was more sweet, but it made for a wonderful balance with the other dishes. The fish was followed by another cousin from the sea, prawns, in a coriander gravy, and this was absolutely yummy.
A stir fry and a couple of bowls noodles later, we were almost purring in pure delight and satisfaction.
It's too bad that Chinese Feasts has closed down. Would've been great to have the restaurant around, but I'm glad I got to visit it at least once.
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3 comments:
nice read n good pics..its ironic that places serving nominally authentic chinese close down whereas the faux variety thrive! would still love to read your review on "Schezwan Court" n try to get a further idea on why it is so highly rated...season's best wishes to you...tc
karthik
there are different varieties of momos
steamed
deep fried
and pan fried where the momos are fried in a well oiled pan on low heat with lid on
if you would have asked for steamed momos iam sure they would have served it....guess u asked for pan fried ones
so now you know
@EarnesTaster - Good question, although in this case, the landlord kept increasing the rent exponentially and the restaurant couldn't function.
@Anonymous - Yes, I do know about the different types of momos :) And I wasn't doing any of the ordering, but it's just that these weren't deep fried, and the between pan fried and steamed, I'll take steamed any day. Also, the partial browning of the outside didn't seem to do too much to the taste except provide a slightly 'burnt' shell.
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