Imagine a Sunday lunch with a stream of steaming dim sums and cups of Chinese tea. And dim sum lovers will do anything to get a bite of these steamed delights in the newly introduced menu at Yauatcha. It has no literal meaning, but it is made up of three words - Yau is the surname of founder, Alan Yau, and Cha means tea. It is a dim sum tea house serving modern Cantonese cuisine.
The new menu at Yauatcha is extensive, and incredibly tempting. It took us a while to pick, and fortunately, we had Chef Wang Yixuan to help us. We turned ourselves over to him, and as the food started appearing before us, I thanked our good sense in doing so.
First up, a bowl of hot and sour soup immediately set the bar high enough for me to worry about the rest of the meal catching up. The red wine vinegar in the soup added to the perfect taste. The salad served along was fresh and deliciously light.
Moving on to dim sum which looked like small-sized kozhukattas from far with a touch of culinary artistry to them, they came in an array of varieties. Chef Wang deftly wrapped wafer thin slices of dough around mouth-watering vegetarian and non-vegetarian fillings to make the quintessential Chinese hors d’oeuvre known as dim sum. From Mandarin dumpling, crispy pak choi, to truffle and English carrot dumpling wrapped just right, its outside lightly coated with potato starch and stuffed with yam bean, chive flower and shimeji mushrooms; it was a burst of textures and freshness. I could have just had platters of these dumplings the entire day but I had a job to do (albeit a very welcoming one).
To enhance the visual appeal of these dim sums, chef at the restaurant adds fine juliennes of few bright veggies to the meat and sea food. Despite being steamed, the dough does not have a yellow tinge because the flour used is super-fine such as wheat starch, potato starch and hong kong flour. This also makes it quite distinct in taste from momos, which are Tibetan versions of the dim sum.
Mushroom spring roll with black truffle dipped in soya sauce had the perfect consistency — silky smooth and slippery but lacked the flavour due to more of soya in it. If there is space for more, go for the clear noodle soup and the main course which is a choice of either noodles or rice. For the dessert we zeroed in on luxe gateau, a pie of brownie topped with mango and vanilla ice cream. But there is a little tweak here, the dish was innovative but couldn’t tingle our taste buds.
We end with a green tea and pepper crème brûlée – a delicately flavoured, melt-in-the-mouth concoction that leaves us feeling light.