Mamagoto offers food lovers Asian cuisine prepared with a twist and are constantly adding new dishes to its menu. Shrabasti Mallik checks in
There is no dearth of Asian places in the Capital that a foodie can visit for a hearty meal. Some of them offer authentic Asian food with imported spices and probably a chef fly down a chef from the respective places. But there are also places which offer Asian “with a twist.” Mamagoto falls in the latter category. They do not claim to be original but are innovative.
Their outlet in Khan Market is perhaps the most easily identifiable, courtesy the bright yellow door. The interior walls will remind you of the Chinese cartoons we used to watch as kids. Every inch of the walls is filled with cute cartoon characters and colourful paintings. All that we needed to do was to see (read taste) the “innovative food” they offer.
We tried their slim sumo salad (quinoa salad with thai flavoured dressing, cherry tomatoes and mangoes). One might call it perfect to beat the summer heat but with the winter winds blowing in, you might just want to give salads a miss; although, we did love the combination of quinoa and bits of unripe mangoes.
If you happen to dine here, we suggest you try their Singapore race club bowl (prawn and egg wok tossed in a chilli sauce curry served with fried mantau buns or Chinese bread). It was warm, thick and perfect for a full meal. Plus, it had prawns. The Chinese breads, we found out, are baked in-house and were soft and spongy.
The place offers popsicles and in good combinations. We went for the honey and mint, and golly was it huge! It was almost three times the size of a normal popsicle that you buy from the streets and the taste was more minty. We would suggest that you pair the popsicle with their lotus stem salad, tossed with Indian red dried chillies and spices. The stems were beautifully fried and did not lose its crunchiness very quickly.
What would Asian food be without dumplingsIJ With much hope, we dug into the street style spicy shrimp dumpling (minced shrimp, steamed and served with a hot street style red chilli sambal sauce). A little heads up for those who do not like their food hot — the sambal sauce is made from chilli oil and chilli flakes. It had us reaching for our popsicle. The traditional peking chicken dumplings (steamed chicken dumplings dipped in soy, vinegar and red chillis), on the other hand, was rather pleasant to taste.
According to Janti Dugal, food director, dishes like rock shrimp tempura, chiang mai, hot basil cups, dumplings and nasi goreng are a few popular ones in the restaurant. “We are innovative and since the concept of the restaurant is fun Asian, a lot of our dishes are a spin-off of the original recipe,” she explained.
For dessert, we sinfully gorged on the banoffee pie (made from banana and chocolate) and caramel sponge cake, which came with ice cream and melted lacto on the side. We suggest you try either one of them because there is a fair chance that you may not be able to finish both, they are that sweet.
