This year’s week-long celebration of Chinese New Year at ChaoBella was a welcome break from the typical desi Chinese meals blanketed in Schezwan-Soy sauce that most of us are so well-acquainted with. Perhaps, on public demand, the bestselling items from the menu have been incorporated into the permanent menu of the restaurant.
The items that made it are the following: Wanton Soup, Roast Duck, Cantonese Steam Fish, Lemon Chili Vegetables, Pork Ribs and Double Boiled Jun. The ones we absolutely love are the soup, the duck, the fish and the jun (sweet white fungus).
And it’s wonderfully to discover how the fungus – an important ingredient is some parts of China – can start and end the meal. So the Wanton Soup uses the black fungus, which shares the texture and gossamer look of the white fungus in the jun dessert; the only difference being the taste. In the soup, you cannot tell the taste apart from the steaming mixture of Napa cabbage, wild mushroom, carrots and other stem vegetables graced with noodles. But the tight cluster of fungus lends a distinct sweet taste that you can tell apart from the honey drizzle and Goji berry sprinkles, with a dose of the yellow marigold extract.
Duck lovers will savour the tender chunks of duck meat that sport a nice thick and crispy buttery coat, styled on the lines of the traditional Peking Duck. The chef shared that no extra butter was added to the duck while it was roasted over four hours in the oven, and that the slightly greasy texture is the result of it being cooked in its own fat that was released from its breast and skin. By the way, the duck is imported, corn-fed and till it gains a yellow colour.
The fish is deliciously island of its own, swimming in its soupy stock, and generously topped with rubberband thin girth of vegetable peels. Its a Sole fish and its white meat is tender, juicy with the right crunch provided by the colourful bands plus the hydroponic green shoots that the restuarant grows inhouse!
In fact, please ask the chef to show you the portable hydroponic setup, which involves growing the greens in a dim sum basket.
Trivia corner
Please ask the chef to show you the portable hydroponic setup at ChaoBella which involves growing their greens (that are topped on their meals) in a dim sum basket!
At: ChoaBella, Block A, Okhla Phase II, Okhla Industrial Area