Delectible Chinese Fare

I was on a three-city tour that took me to Mumbai, Bangalore, and New Delhi within the span of four days. This whirlwind tour was particularly draining as I moved from hotel to car to airport every few hours, but at the end of it all there was a sense of achievement. However, since this is not blog where I talk about my Clark Kent persona, let me quickly morph into SuperFoodie and tell you about some fantastic culinary discoveries in these cities.

Taipan, the rooftop restaurant at The Oberoi in New Delhi serves up some of the best dim-sums in this country; they even have dim sum lunches on weekends. I discovered this on the day I was flying back home.


It seems dim sums first began appearing in the many tea houses that lined the Silk Route in southern China and Hong Kong. While initially it was taboo to serve food in tea houses, that began to change. Soon, there were places that specialized in dim sums lining the streets of Canton and the small cities frequented by weary travellers. At this time, dim sums places open as early as 5 AM in the morning to dish out the most sumptuous steamed dumplings to locals. Many places continue through the day when tourists pour in to sample these delicacies that touch the heart (dim sum literally means ' little bit of heart').


The dim sum lunch at the Taipan included a choice of soup, a small selection of starters, lots of dim sums, noodles and a choice of dessert. I began with the Szechwan hot and sour soup with chicken. Starters included a shrimp wanton, prawn on roll and chicken spring roll. But what really got the taste buds going were the items to follow.

The Peking Duck pancakes were excellent. I didn't want to stuff myself so I could do justice to the dishes that were to come, but I couldn't resist polishing off both the pancakes they served.

Then came a series of bamboo dim sum containers with shrimp har gau, scallop and prawn dumplings, shrimp and asparagus dumplings, chicken and shrimp siewmai, chicken and lotus root dumpling, chicken and bell pepper, chicken and red pumpkin... you get the idea? Mouth-watering dim sums, one after the other, bursting with taste, flavour and occasionally singeing my mouth as I greedily dug into them.


I particularly remember the Chicken nor mai gai - lotus wrapped sticky rice and chicken - and the Charsiew bao - barbecue pork filled buns. I wondered who could order noodles after that feast. But I had to try a dessert. My waitress recommended the chilled mango pudding, the lightest among the selection of desserts which turned out just right for me.



Taipan is a truely elegant restaurant set against a panoramic view of the city and perfect for the dim sum lover. This is a great place for a business lunch or for an intimate dinner.

A few days earlier, I dined at the opulent China House within the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai. A restaurant like no other, China House exudes a sense of magnificence that is difficult to match. Featuring multiple interactive Chinese kitchens, private spaces and a high-energy lounge, this place creates a new paradigm for Chinese dining, where the cuisine is contemporary and presented with flair and creativity in captivating surroundings.

Located on the lobby level, China House has four distinct areas: the garden, the restaurant, the I Deck private lounge and the high-energy lounge. The restaurant itself flaunts five eye-catching open kitchens and private dining rooms (called Ginger, Chilli, Cinnamon and Nutmeg).

The most interesting feature here are the interactive open kitchens that consist of five stations – an appetiser section, a noodle and dumpling station, the Peking Duck station, the wok section and the dessert station. The Pick Your Fish corner, where guests can select their favourite seafood and the wood-fired Peking Duck oven are also a foodie's delight.

The Claypot Chicken with Smoked Bamboo Shoots in Chili sauce was quite delightful, with delicate flavors that brought out the best of the fresh ingredients. We paired this dish with the Seafood Fried Rice which had a liberal amount of seafood.

The dessert of a Green Tea flavored mousse with home-made passion-fruit (?) ice-cream was incredibly good. This is a restaurant now on my must-return list. The only dampener was they do not like cameras within the premises - Bollywood stars frequent this place often and that's probably the reason why.