Yum Yum Cha’s new experiment in Gurgaon is a pocket full of surprises. Ankita Jain goes on a sampling spree
Whether you are among the fortunate ones sitting at home curled up with a steaming cuppa or sweating away at work, there must be a hot and spicy craving in your mind for sure as you watch the rain pound your window.
And if you are among the busybees at Gurgaon’s Cyber Hub, there’s the pan-Asian Yum Yum Cha with its comfort food that you should make a dash for. After delighting Delhiites, the chain has now branched into NCR. With origami installations and stainless colourful butterflies dangling from the ceiling, the bistro immediately perks you up. Sunnily enough.
The brightly-coloured menu whets your appetite as you pan street and sea food favourites from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Kenya. We begin with a mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dim sums. From a long list of flavours and fillings, we try out spicy vegetarian bao which stands out with its delicate texture and a flavour range enhanced by dipping it in hot barbeque sauce. The very familiar chicken dimsum throws up a surprise layered as it is with garlic in chilli oil and vinegar that lends it a zesty kick. We team it up with a mocktail of Thai orange, kafir lime and green apple, the most rounded refresher that perhaps can ever be. Served in gimmicky, fun bottles, this is a sure way of attracting the non-eaters to at least a salad bowl. The one to relish is the creamy mush of the insides of an avocado, mixed in chicken and mushroom with a dash of yuso dressing. Presented in an avocado shell, you would always have space for one more scoop.
There’s a huge array of vegetarian and non-vegetarian sushi rolls, one for every kind of palate. There’s the asparagus tempura sushi roll with fillings of chillies and mayo, which makes us dump the usual and expected fare simply because it is a great roll of “fire.” It gears us up for the main course, sizzling noodles in spicy basil and chilli sauce which is well-fried, stirred and reduced with roasted peanut, mushroom, sweet corn and soya sauce, one of my favourites from the entire platter because of its rounded taste and its playing up to every taste bud simultaneously. Chicken sticky rice in soy and garlic sauce, served in stone pots, is the ultimate broth magic. The prawn har gao is another signature worth writing home about. Simply because nobody manages to cook the prawn at its optimum best. And this one has a not too crunchy but gently flaky outer skin and shell film encasing a perfectly seasoned, fresh and tender kernel. You can have them siple or dip them in six kinds of sauces to innovate on your own. That’s the best part about Southeast Asian food, delightfully simple to prepare yet dressing-wise quite complex to serve.
Amidst a variety of desserts from cappuccino to matcha green tea, we finish off with mochi ice cream flavoured in blackberry and chocolate sauce and wrapped in soft thin mocha shells. Mochi is a traditional Japanese preparation made from steamed and pounded sticky rice and sugar. If nothing else, one should visit this place for its desserts. The more you have, the more you would crave for.
If you are really on the move, do drop into this eatery for Japanese pizza (flour tortillas topped with tuna or the sweetish morsels of crispy duck), California rolls with crab, black caviar, cucumber and avocado. With these utterly mouth-watering sundry cuisine and all-time filled 42-seater restaurant, this outlet stays true to its slogan, “little bundles of joy and big bowls of happiness.” Moreover, to make this pocket-friendly restaurant more lively, they can customise the lights and music, making it dim and soothing in the background.