Ano Tai- Vasant Continental, Vasant Vihar , The Experience – Located on the first floor overloking the busy Vasant Vihar market road , wooden flooring , dimsum lounge and a banquet style sitting central open kitchen and Superb home Style Hunan Chinese cooking. Sour and Spicy – loads of Flavors .
Was
there for lunch with friends met up with the Expat Chef Eagle Hu (Not me definitely Lol) 17years of cooking experience all over China
, was in the Chinese for a bit moved to Jayee Group 3 years ago . Inspite of
being a Hunan Cuisine specialist he finds Desi Food Spicy J . Well anyway like always
asked the chef to suggest a complete Hunan meal experience or the way he would
feed his family and that was it , I believe the Chinese have great appetites and
follow great customs when it comes to hospitality . Guest are god for them –
the food bowl can never be empty at the end of the meal very unlike what we do –
scrape the bottom of the dish to get paisa vasool. Oh ! so when the expat chef
came to india could not speak a word of Chinese , always dealth with every one
with a interpreter which irritated him and as well as the guest . He made an
super effort to Learn English which he has successfully done and as a bonus
learnt quite a lot of Hindi also . Im glad he did that becos we are entering
the era of chef Run and not led restaurants – where want a interaction with the
person behind the food . So the chef recommended we go for a HOT POT meal on
the table with all meats besides prawns . Sounded super to us .
The meal started with Two varieties of Dim Sums – prawn and veggie
– have had a lot of dimsums all over the place and have learnt that the wrapper
has to be a bit sticky , and the maal inside has to be finely chopped well fused
and juicy to make it a good dimsum. They were served with this most amazing dip
– Garlic chiily ginger paste – something to die for . Honestly speaking the
dimsums were a killer , Prawn Hargao and
Vegetable Sui Mui. Alongside the served us the usuals prawn crackers and
kimchee dunno why , they were not required at all .
Some complimentary apetisers came up - Chongqing Fish and Sichuan
Lamb. The Fish was made in mustard and ginger – beautiful color of orange tasted divine , the lamb was ok ok .
The HotPot came – Divided into to two compartment one had
the Cantonese broth and the other the hunan killer broth.LOL. The smells that
came from the hunan style broth were beautifu and divine, the othe was Sichuan chicken and bamboo stock – the other
was a basic chicken broth .Infact my first exposure to a hot pot meal was in
Bali Hi at maurya – grt memories of it . And this was followed by Chef Eagle Hu himself
who insisted he served us personally , very touching I must say . Alongside the
gave us plates of pork , Lamb , tenderloin, chicken , mushrooms, Lettuce,
Chinese cabbage, Tofu, Pok Choy and yes some fresh fish . Chef soaked all the
meats one at a time into both the flavors checked if they were cooked and served
us with his tongs and chopsticks . The hot pot was on a induction plate so was
boiling in seconds . In a couple minutes the meat was ready to be eaten with two
sauces – sesame peanut sauce and garlic ginger sauce both went well with the meats
. I loved the hunan flavored pork and tenderloin , and in the clear broth fish
and chicken . A great experience , the fact that we had two different flavors at
the same time made life and the palate very interesting.
We very quite FED Up towards the end of it until this punju
friend of mine woke and said yaar fried rice to khaya nahi – lo karl o baat
hahahaah – chef heard that and sheepishly went into the kitchen , came out
after exact 15 mins with and amazing Egg and scallion fried rice , Tofu in
black bean sauce and spicy sliced lamb with greens…. We all felt so silly but dug into them like
silly kids – I personally loved the Fried Rice never had them better , the
other punjus loved the combo of tofu and lamb.
The Kitchen
The Expat Chinese Chef Eagle Hu
Chongqing
Fish
Sichuan Lamb
The Hot Pot Meal - Left is the Spicy Hunan Style Broth and the Right is the Simple cantonese clear Broth
Fish , Tenderloin
Pork , Chinese Greens
Chicken , Lamb
Chef Eagle Hu in Action with his Chopsticks
Hot Pot for Individual Servings - very cute lil pot
The Yummy Egg and scallion fried Rice
Chunky Spicy Lamb - actually forgot the name lol.
Tofu in Black Bean
Sorry forgot to take pictures of the amazing Dimsums and its sauce .:(
Overall experience – Super Super Food – amazing concept , textures , flavors keeping in mind it was home style cooking , Fantastic Chef Interaction, the ambience sucked a bit – very formal , nothing very Chinese besides Chef Eagle Hu , huge empty spaces – apparently under renovation , very spacious , nice bright natural lighting - I love it - hate dark restaurants , the crockery and cutlery needs a drastic change to complete the fine dining experience.
Overall Tigers Experience :
Food - Mind Blowing - thats reason i would go back
Ambiance - can be better
Service - Prompt - server needs to speak louder LOL or am i going deaf
Quality - Fresh meats , Fresh Greens - authentic cuisine
Smells - None from the Kitchen
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