The world is not enough. For food that is. With a languorous list of darlings serving pan-Asian strewn across the city, Kylin comes out clean if not on top. By Devi Singh
The city is known for its love for umami flavours. Doesn’t matter which direction you are coming from, looking for that one place serving good enough oriental fare is always on people’s capers. There are some places who know how to do it right and some who know how to do it smart. And going by the popular demand we seem to be stormed by more of such “smart” places serving their own version of sweet and sour to appease the quintessential “Delhi” palate. With very limited options of authentic east Asian (sic) grub, there are only a handful of eateries hanging around who are doing a good job at offering such seemly stuff. Kylin is one of them. Certainly not a new kid on the block and definitely not grabbing eyeballs screaming any outlandish innovation, it’s been enjoying its pretty little status of one of those places serving that quixotic “good enough” Oriental food.
It was doing exactly that when we came here a few years back and it’s the same even now. No chicanery here whatsoever. A well known name for cuisines like Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Malaysian and Vietnamese with its star attraction — well that’s what it sells mainly for — Teppanyaki grill, the resto bar has managed to hold its clientele and how. Even today the sprightly parents are ever so excited to bring in their kids and make them learn the art or two about the theatrical skills of the chefs preparing and serving meals hot and fresh with backdrop of typical zen red walls. It’s what defines “fun” for them. We don’t wish to complain as far as the soothing Mongolian music keeps us some pacific company.
We started with Saketini, which was one of the most basic, no-nonsense tipple we had in a long time, nothing but basic sake and vodka, clean and neat. After a considerable amount of bittersweet time, we decided for asparagus tempura with chilli mayo, tempura crust was as crisp as it could get. Next came some more rolls, this time stuffed with avocado and shitake enveloped in acetic sticky rice. This we downed with yet another classic done with a very basic twist, addition of a little wasabi in martini. But hold it; it’s not as easy and smooth tasting as it sounded and looked.
The drink hits you hard at the back of your throat courtesy generous amounts of wasabi going in. But your lovely throat set on fire will get some relief just by the refreshing looks of it. Moving on we had assorted dimsums, ranging from babycorn to bok choy and black mushroom. The best combo hands down was the last one we popped — almonds and broccoli. This we washed down with sly Thai martini which happened to be the most refreshing drink for the evening with lychees and lemon. For the mains we decided on spicy greens with lemon grass and hot basil which came with an option of three different rice, we stuck to fried rice. Not too spicy, just the right balance of tang, like yin and yang this one went down well with chilli coriander martini which was spicier than the food. We ended it all with chocolate fondue, not something to write about, served with basic fruits, we expected marshmallows at least. Don’t blame us. After all the heat we needed our good old soul goodies.