Nothing blends better than food and music and the two blend seamlessly at Ahoy!Asia, owned by two passionate people — a musician and a chef-cum-musician, Arun Chanda and Satyajit Mukherjee. Being an Oriental cuisine lover I am excited about the emergence of Ahoy!Asia. Hardly 10 days old, this Asian café located at M4 GK II Market, has been doing pretty well.
As I entered I was impressed by its vibrant and colorful décor. Ahoy!Asia had the vibes of a happy and fun place to hangout with friends. Not just sticking to Sichuan and Canton regions Ahoy!Asia offers delicacies from Mongolia, Myanmar, Tibet, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan but the cuisine which impressed me was Uyghur cuisine, from the Xinjiang region of China.It melds the spicy flavours of its native Islamic populace and neighbours with the tastes and textures of traditional Chinese food. I started with one of my favourites, a prawn laksa soup, which was quite flavourful. Nicely seasoned and textured, it looked enticing. Uyghur speciality, tangiao dumpling soup was also impressive. I followed the soup with a couple of starters. First to be served were chicken satay and Malaysian fish kabab. Both of them were full on succulence. But dynamite swere extraordinary.
Presented beautifully in a martini glass, the shrimps were spicy and mouth-watering. Another Uyghur dish, spicy tenderloin kababs were tasty and a tad chewy, which I liked. Even the flavours were quite subtle.
After my starters, Arun introduced me to okonomiyaki, simply explained as Japanese pizza. Largely based on cabbage, the thick pancake was filling and had robust flavours due to the layering done in okonomiyaki sauce. In my main course I had Uyghur pilaf, zhua fan. Somehow I found it to be dry and would have preferred it with a curry. Influenced by west Asian cuisine, it had raisins and chick peas in it. Nasi dadang, a Malaysian import, was superb. Rice made in shaved coconut and milk was tasty and complemented the fish curry quite well. Ending on a sweet note I had the great wall of chocolate and crunchy banana spring rolls. Meal for two: Rs. 1200 plus taxes
