Tigers Experience of Ano Tai - Vasant Continental

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. 

We felt that Ano Tai was a underplayed restaurant amazing food and specially when we heard the money 1000 per head only without taxes  OMG only. Yes Only . Run For it . we are for sure going back to eat the rest of the menu . 

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