BM Review: Tangra

A few weeks back I'd been to Tangra, a new Chinese restaurant in Jayanagar, part of Hotel Eden Park. The review for Bangalore Mirror can be read here. Some desk monkey has gone and changed the title from "Buddha ain't laughing" to "Hakka steaming the neighbourhood". What's the connection, I have no idea, but whatever...their paper, their wish.

Tangra is a region in Calcutta that housed a large number of tanneries owned my migrant Chinese, commonly known as Hakka Chinese. The food brought to India by them was adapted for the Indian palate (actually the Bengali palate), and the result is there for us to see all over town (and the country).

Unlike many 'Chinese' restaurants, Tangra thankfully isn't set in dingy, dim red lights with clichéd images of dragons and Chinese writings all over the place.

The wanton soup we had was quite a pleasant way to get started. The clear soup was well flavoured and there weren't too many flotillas to mask the taste of the wantons in them. The other dish that brought a warm smile was the prawn dumpling, with it's soft exterior shell and delicately flavoured contents. The Hawker's style Singapore chilli crab came quite close to the real deal, but we all agreed that there was hardly any chilli and it would have tasted better if it were a soft-shelled crab.

Wonton soup

Hawker's chilli crab

The veg sui mai was quite bland and felt sticky inside the mouth, while the lemon chicken — strips of batter-fried chicken with a lemony flavour — felt a little insipid; perhaps a more robust dip would’ve helped. Spring rolls that are deep fried need to be served piping hot or else the charm is lost, which was the case here.

Tangra lemon chicken

Spring rolls

Among the mains, perhaps the sapo chicken caught our fancy because of the use of rice wine in it. The sizzling noodles too were nice, but why it's called Japanese sizzling noodles has left us flummoxed.

Sizzling noodles

Date pancake

The service is quite nice and guests are helped with suggestions for what to order.

Food: Standard Chinese fare
$$$: Not too expensive, given the setup and all. Maybe around Rs. 800 for two.
Service: Good
Verdict: Can visit if in the area and if you want to dine in a little more comfort.

Tangra, Eden Park Restaurants, 722/2, 36^th Cross, 10^th ‘A’ Main, Jayanagar 4^th Block, Bangalore. Phone: 42777333

BM Review: Xian

Last Saturday, I finally visited Xian, along with the owners of the blog Purple Cinnamon and Salt, Pallavi and Upasana, along with Sreeja (a friend of a friend) and her friend Snigdha. The full review for the paper along with a snap of the guests can be read here.

I don't know the exact reason, but someone at the paper seems to like articles in the English language very much, so much so that they added a 'The' to the start of the title I'd given for the write up. I'd titled it as 'Yin yang harmony', to indicate the balance between the good and the not so good at Xian (and there being a giant yin yang at Xian contributed heavily to this title). By adding the 'The' at the start, it sort of makes it sound as an attribute almost exclusively meant for Xian (which obviously isn't true - almost all places could be recipients of this phrase as most would have some not so good things to go with the good...thus, yin yang). But anyway, what do I know about English, I'm just a techie who happens to love and know a little bit about food, so let's put an end to the English grammar lesson here.

We started off with some chicken and pork steamed momos, and then moved on spare ribs, crispy spinach, chilli prawn balls, and bacon-wrapped prawns. The momos were good, but I've found the momos served at delicacy to be better because the outer casing of the momo is not hard, but still soft (at Delicacy), but here, it was a little hard, but taste wise, they were good. The spare ribs stole the show, like totally! Served in a sweet-ish sauce that probably was a mixture of barbecue and a bit of Worcestershire (for a little tang and zing), the meat of actually so yummiliciously flavoured and tender that all of us had to struggle to remain civil at the table. In short, it was good. Then, things slid a little down hill. The crispy spinach was nice, but had flour added to it to 'hold' it together I'm guessing. Bad idea! not only did it add an unearthly whitish-cream colour to the green of the spinach, it cut into the taste as well.

Spare ribs...some of the best I've ever had

Crispy spinach with vegetables

On the menu, this chilli prawn balls was under the 'chef recommends' section. This dish was a little spicy (and some found it a little too spicy). Flavour wise, there was the distinct prawn flavour mixed with a little coriander and chilli, however, what was missing was something to go with the dish and probably cut out a little bit of the heat from the chilli. After talking to Pallavi, who thought a lemon-honey based sauce/dip could've helped as opposed to my garlic-mayo dip suggestion, I tended to agree more with her idea for the simple reason that a bit of acid WAS precisely what was needed for a sea food dish, and the lemon would certainly have provided that while cutting into the chilli. Some garnish on the dish would've helped as well - rather plane-Jane if you ask me.

Chilli prawn balls

Bacon-wrapped prawns. On any given day, I'd have to say that even in my sleep I'd answer that this would be a winner. now I'm not sure if this is the trend everywhere, but here the dish came batter-fried!!! Oh dear, my fat, crumbled heart nearly skipped a few beats when I saw it. And the batter coating was too thick to enjoy the salty, bacon-infused flavour on the prawns. Tch tch, I think even the prawns felt bad, and I felt bad that the prawns didn't get to be more physically intimate with the bacon.

Bacon wrapped prawns

For the mains, we ordered a Malaysian flat noodles and a Thai red curry with a portion of steamed rice. Along with this, we ordered a char-siu pork, dragon lamb, and Xian pickled prawns (with black bean paste). The flat noodles looked nice, with nice colours, and tasted good as well.

Malaysian flat noodles (kway teao)

The Thai red curry was quite lovely - coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, and red chilli paste... yummmm-meee!

Thai red curry

Pork was a bit of a specialty here I think, and the char-siu pork served was quite good, save for a few pieces of meat that were a bit chewy. But otherwise, the honey-sweetened pork (generally flavoured with Chinese five-spice powder) is quite a good side dish to be had any time. the dragon lamb seemed and tasted almost like the char-siu pork, with the only difference being in the texture of the meats - they are different animals after all!

Char Sui pork

Dragon lamb

The Xian pickled prawns had got us a wee bit excited. We were anticipating a slightly sour, and probably fermented dish (it did say pickled, and was in a black bean paste, which is normally fermented and pungent). However, what came was a bowl of a thick gravy with prawns and vegetables, with tiny flecks of black bean in it. On it's own, it tasted good, but having being primed with the word 'pickled', it was a let down.

Pickled prawns in black bean sauce

Overall, quite a decent place, and since the prices are slightly on the higher side when compared to any of the other 'Chinese' joints in town, the good thing is the dishes, decor, cutlery, etc do live up to a slightly higher standard that you'd expect while paying this kind of money.

Food: Some good, some not so great, overall - pretty decent.
$$$: Not your average Chinese joint...maybe around 500 or so per head.
Service: Decent
Verdict: Worth a visit if in that part part of town.

Xian, #132, Gangadhara Chetty Road, opposite Ulsoor Lake, Bangalore. Phone: 41515163

Momo Hut

Monday night, Mr P decided to celebrate his anti birthday. Wait, I'll explain what that means, don't get all 'Wha..? ' on me now. September 22 is his birthday, and March 22 is 6 months after, so he wanted to do this. His idea, not mine. So an anti birthday is one where the anti birthday boy doesn't bring gifts while the invitees foot the bill. VP and I were in early (big surprise coz usually VP is almost always late). So instead of waiting at Barista (the proposed waiting place), VP and I first headed next door to Tunday Kababi as VP was extremely hungry. Sorry, no pictures of what we had there, but the Tunday special was simply amazing (there's a legend that the original one, made from beef, was made for a king who had no teeth, so you can imagin how soft it must have been).

In any case, after eating, the rest of the gang arrived - the rest being the anti-birthday boy P, and Ms WeightConscious. After some iced teas, we had initially planned to go to Rolls united, but then decided to go some place where we could walk to as VP didn't have enough fuel and wanted to fill up first. And that's when we remembered that there's a place called Momo hut opposite Desmond's (in Koramangala itself, on the street parallel to the JNC street).

VP and I were quite full after out little adventure at Tunday's, so a plate of chicken momos (steamed) and a plate of Shaptra with Tingmo is what we ordered respectively, although knowing VP, I knew I'd have to finish off what he leaves for "the poor hungry people on the street". Shaptra is a spicy dish having peppers and onions with chicken, beef, or veggies. It's usually had with the Tingmo, which is a hand made Tibetan bun. If you look closely at the picture below, you'll notice that the top of the bun isn't dark brown like commercially available buns. I later found out that it's steamed.

Shaptra with the Tibetan bun called Tingmo

The Shaptra along with the Tingmo was really nice (I've had this before when I visited a Taste of Tibet in Langford town near St Joseph's college). The gravy wasn't super spicy as I had expected, and the Tingmo was a nice accompaniment to mop up the gravy.

Picture of just the Shaptra

As expected, VP had a couple of pieces of the momos and then said he was full, and mumbled about how the momos looked yellow and not white and what not. Now I know why I never lose weight - I end up eating whatever VP orders as well!

Chicken momos (steamed)

P & WeightConscious had the veg chowmein and both agreed it was good. P also had a bowl of egg soup. One thing to remember is that Tibetan food doesn't make use of MSG or ajinomoto like the Chinese restaurants do, and for heavens sake, don't ask them for Chinese food or make any references to China when you're at a Tibetan restaurant. I know I've used a tag 'Chinese' for this post, but that is purely for convenience, and not meant to be offensive.

Veg Chowmein

Food: Nice
$$$: Cheap
Service: Prompt
Verdict: Can visit if you're in the area and want to avoid Chinese joints serving food with MSG.

Momo Hut, 4th B Cross, opposite Desmond's and Daily Bread, Koromangala 5th Block, Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 40927500