The menu card is handed to us on an exam pad. Lifting the pages to pick our order, it’s impossible not to smile — it’s like we’re flipping through answer sheets in the exam hall in school. MadrAsian, the new pan-Asian restaurant in town, earns brownie points from the start; from the elaborately painted tropical wall (they say that it was done by a city-based artist), to the cane lamps handcrafted by a local artisan, the restaurant has a quaint, café-like air about it.
We start our dinner that Sunday with the Vietnamese pho , a clear soup with chicken (there is also a choice of vegetables to pick from). Mild and fragrant, it’s flavoured with cinnamon and has flat noodles and tofu. It has the effect of a hot cup of green tea, and leaves us feeling all warm and happy. We skip the salad — although we were tempted by the ramen salad, a crunchy salad with assorted vegetables — and head straight to the starters.
Mushroom with lemongrass and basil, a dish in which mushrooms are tossed with nam prik pao (Thai chilli paste), is initially quite nice. The mushrooms are served whole without the stem and are a burst of textures in the mouth: spicy and soft, they still had a bit of crunch to them, and the deep-fried onions added to the flavour. We pop in one after the other, but soon find the herbs a little overwhelming.
But the crispy chicken winglets (deep-fried chicken tossed with a tangy Asian sauce) are much better. The tangy flavour goes well with the crispy exterior. The chicken
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Speaking of takeaway, our doggy bag is a brown paper cover, and the containers are made of paper. More points for being environmentally conscious.
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Ramen soupy noodles, which our waiter recommends, has just the right spice levels. The serving is big — it can make a hearty meal for one or even two people. The soup is spicy and tangy; and our chicken version comes with a good portion of vegetables as well.
But the evening’s winner is the laksa (Peranakan noodle soup). It comes to us in all its sunshine-yellow glory, topped with a sliced boiled egg. The aroma, the creamy coconut base, the lingering sweetish-spiciness… it’s so good that we even forgive them for not having dessert on the menu. Under dessert, they have a note that asks us to walk to Amadora for ice cream downstairs. Oh well, we don’t want anything more after that killer laksa .
MadrAsian
Annai Velankanni Road, T46 A, 7th Ave, Besant Nagar
Hits: Laksa, crispy chicken winglets
Misses: Mushroom with lemongrass and basil
Cost for two: ₹800
Call: 8608374444