“We are not a pan-Asian restaurant. We are a Chinese restaurant; let’s establish that”, declares Chef Christian Yang even before we settle down for a chat. The décor at Typhoon Shelter, the newest restaurant to open at Skyzone in Phoenix Mill Compound, is understated Oriental. There are cosy booths with Chinese lanterns and curtain panels, a long community table with high chairs, and the ceiling is an ever-changing projection of a typhoon-ravaged sky, complete with thunder and lightning. The last nod to the typhoon shelter cuisine specific to Hong Kong.
Safe harbour
“Hong Kong is a busy port and during typhoon season the fishermen and shipmen have to find places to shelter themselves. So we build barriers that block the waves from coming in and allow safe harbour. These shelters have their own cuisine that includes dishes like black bean clams and crab with lots of fried garlic”, explains Yang. The chef imagines a hypothetical scenario where ships from all over China take safe harbour and decide to throw a party. “If one vessel’s cuisine from their native province merges with the native cuisine of another vessel, what would that look like? Would they try mixing each other’s cuisine? It’s still Chinese; we are not making East meets West, but it’s a mix of provincial food from across China,” he elaborates. Yang believes that Chinese food just hasn’t had its day. “We are everybody’s takeout specialty. But I want to make Chinese food exciting again,” he emphasises.
Fishy tales
Yang’s menu builds on a Cantonese base while adding punchy flavours from provincial Chinese cuisines. Like the ‘Typhoon 8 Pomfret’, which gives the typical Mumbai fish a makeover – a whole (deboned) pomfret, fried and served with a mixture of soy sauce, scallions, garlic, and chillies. Yang has also given the Chinese staple of steamed scallops his signature update. “I like to use Chinese techniques to introduce something interesting into the dish. The Chinese love to steam scallops. But instead of steaming with water, I experiment with other flavours like with Tsing Tao beer, which is Chinese”, says Yang. He serves the ‘Tsing Tao Scallops’ topped with dried XO, an intense combination of dried shrimp, garlic, and chilli. The ‘Squid Ink Dumplings’ are also a winner, with juicy prawns and scallops wrapped in squid ink skin, topped with flying fish roe. Meat eaters, don’t miss the melt-in-the-mouth ‘Lamb Crystal Ball’, which are succulent minced lamb dim sums flavoured with basil and bird’s eye chilli, surrounded by the thinnest dumpling skin. Another highlight is the perfectly cooked ‘Sous-vide Duck Leg’, glazed with a sticky chilli-plum sauce.
Going green
“The vegetarian menu was, hands-down, my biggest challenge here,” says Yang. “In many restaurants, the vegetarian dishes are versions of meat dishes. We have tried to minimise that. We want a vegetarian dish to be a unique entity standing in the menu in its own right,” he continues. One of the highlights of the menu is the ‘Baby Eggplant’ dish that combines the veggie in question, bell peppers, and chilli butter garlic sauce. “I spent 14 days training the team here and this is one of the dishes they came up with. I dream about this dish and I never have dreams about vegetarian food”, laughs Yang. Another vegetarian star is the exquisite ‘Ruby Dumpling’, which has beetroot juice kneaded into the dough and crunchy sugar snap and corn inside.
Sweet surprises
The desserts see the deft hand of pastry chef Solanki Roy at play. Roy who began at Flury’s Kolkata and was most recently in charge of pastry at Gaggan Bangkok, has created eight distinctly contemporary Oriental desserts with a surprise twist. We tried ‘Learning Mandarin’, a bright orange, white chocolate ball that you break to reveal a creamy mandarin sorbet within and an orange conserve soft-centre. Roy pairs this with bite-size pieces of kek lapis, a layer cake popular in the Indonesian Chinatown of Glodok. Other desserts include ‘Zen’, which are edible stones of caramel, vanilla, and hazelnut crunch, and ‘Luna’, an extravagant take on mango sticky rice pudding.
While the latest addition to the city’s crowded Oriental food space is pricey, (a meal for two with alcohol will set you back by ₹5,000 plus taxes), every dish we tried was spot on with flavours and was quite beautifully presented.
Typhoon Shelter, S-3, Second Floor, Skyzone, Phoenix Mill Compound, S. B. Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai. Open from noon to 1 a.m; call 30151817
