As you would know, Restaurant Week India, 2016 has started in Kolkata and is about to end in a few days. Read the pre-event listing here. I am a big foodie. This is the only reason why I became really excited when Restaurant Week India invited me to taste some special menu for the event. They gave me a few choices of restaurants in the city among which I chose Yauatcha. The reason why I chose Yauatcha is, I have heard a lot of rave about this restaurant from my foodie friends and secondly, I wanted to try some food from the city’s first Michelin Star restaurant. I took my sister along with me.
We had a table booked for us by RWI team for lunch. As soon as we entered the restaurant, we were escorted to our table by a staff. After we made ourselves comfortable, the manager (I am really sorry, I can’t remember names :/) came to us to know if we are comfortable there. We were served welcome drinks. Mine was a Lime and Passion fruit drink and my sister got a Strawberry one. At this moment, the manager introduced us to the chef, Kushal Lama (I remember his name because I have his business card). After exchanging greetings, he explained us all about Yauatcha, its start, the menu and what they aim to. Yauatcha is a pure Cantonese restaurant, opened in Soho, London in 2004. It’s first branch in India was opened in Mumbai. Without further ado, let’s get into the most important part of this post, the menu or rather the special menu.
The Restaurant Week India special menu at Yauatcha is divided into three parts which is the three course- appetizers, main course and dessert. You get a choice to choose one from each menu along with staples like rice/noodles for RS 900/- per person (tax extra). Honestly, I have no idea about Cantonese food and I did not want to mess up my experience by experimenting, so I asked the chef to suggest which dish should we go with. The chef was really happy to do that for us.
So, from the appetizer menu, he suggested us to try the dumplings and the cheung fun which are their specialties. He suggested the Wrapped Chicken in Pakchoi with Szechuan Sauce and the Crispy Prawn Cheung Fun. The first one is a steamed dumpling where Pakchoi which is a Chinese green is filled with diced chicken and yam bean and then steamed and served with szechuan sauce. The second one is basically a roll in which steamed rice paper is wrapped around crispy fried prawn dipped in tempura batter and served with sweet soya sauce. Both of the dishes had a very subtle flavour to them. I loved the Crispy Prawn Cheung Fun a lot and I would recommend you guys to try it out. The steamed outer part and crispy inner part gives it a very unique texture which I loved. My sister, on the other hand liked the dumpling more.
For the main course, chef Lama asked us for our choices and we wanted to go for a prawn dish and a lamb dish. We went for the Sliced Lamb in Kam Heong Sauce and Stir Fry Prawns in Home Town Chili Sauce. The lamb was tossed with diced veggies like yellow bell peppers and onion and the Kam Heong sauce. I found the lamb a little chewy. It was not as soft and juicy as I would like it to be. Both of us liked the prawn more. The prawn was blanched and then tossed with some veggies and the Home Town sauce which is a little spicy and tangy. I must say this dish hit all the right notes. We had also ordered the Chicken and Egg Fried Rice along with these two dishes.
For dessert, we had only four options among which we both agreed for the Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse. Chocolate any day! This dessert was so blissful that the taste is still in my memory. It was actually a mousse served with ice-cream. I haven;t tried anything more divine than this in a long time.
We both enjoyed our food and the overall experience was really good. The chef was always there by the side to assist us learning about what we were eating. The entire staff was so soft-spoken and helpful and the ambiance of the restaurant was really peaceful.
OLA Prime Presents Restaurant Week India is about to end on May 1st. If you want to try the special menus then book a table now. You have visit RWI’s website to book a table.
P.S.- Please bear with the amateur photographs. It was my first time clicking with a DSLR.
