Cloves, chillies, star anise, black pepper. The dishes at China Town in Ampa Mall are packed with spices. Yet, nothing is too spicy as the chillies lend more flavour than fieriness. The menu at the new pan-Asian restaurant boasts Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean and Thai dishes in addition to the trademark Chinese.
Dinner starts with Pho Bo, a popular street food in Vietnam that usually serves as a one pot meal. Over here it’s a humble appetiser. Served in a relatively small bowl, this beef noodle soup has an unfortunate overpowering flavour of cloves. It is matched only by the taste of Vietnamese coriander. Together both overwhelm the bland boiled beef and flat noodles in the soup. Following the soup is an interesting range of starters, including water chestnuts Hunan style, sambal ayam, roast duck in pepper sauce and prawns chilly coriander.
The water chestnuts are sliced, fried and tossed with red chillies. The crunchy nut at the centre gives the dish an interesting texture. It is hard to tell that the sambal ayam is in fact deep fried chicken tossed in hot sauce, as the meat is very spongy. Garnished with chilly peppers, spring onions and garlic, the dish has a tangy twist, owing to vinegar and lime.
The duck comes sliced and roasted in soy sauce before being tossed in pepper sauce. Deep fried and garnished with onions, the dish is a bit dry even though all the flavours blend well. The fried prawns are juicy and mildly spicy. While the Chinese water chestnuts and Indonesian chicken have similar flavours, the similarity between the duck and prawn is more obvious.
Aji Joseph, corporate chef of Oriental Cuisines, explains that this could possibly be because of the red chillies used to make the dishes.
The main course takes a while to arrive — khao pad bai gaprow with chicken and kway teow with prawn. The kway teow, flat noodles tossed in a medium spicy sauce, is a cross-cultural favourite in countries like Malaysia and Singapore. The prawns in the noodles are hard to find, because they are chopped too small, and big pieces of tofu keep cropping up instead.
Khao pad bai gaprow is spicy fried rice with chilli and hot Thai basil leaves. It comes neatly engulfed in a layer of fried egg, which when broken and served, looks inviting. The rice is well-cooked, mildly spicy and packed with Thai basil leaves, which lend it a distinct flavour.
The main courses are accompanied by broccoli baby corn spinach in Hong Kong style: a medley of vegetables sautéed in soy and red ground chilli sauce with a dash of honey.
China Town has made an effort to create a reasonably varied spread. In fact, they plan to introduce Teppanyaki and sushi, for an interactive and theatrical Japanese dining experience. However, many parts of the meal — the kway teow for example — taste rather predictable: in keeping with old-fashioned Indian-Chinese format, complete with soy, red chilli and garlic.
While the dishes are well-made, they offer no great surprises.
China Town is located in Ampa Skywalk, Nelson Manickam road, Aminijikarai. Phone: 32216634. A meal for two is priced at Rs. 1000.
