Get a taste of Asian street food at JW Marriott Kolkata's Vintage Asia festival

No fine dining joint in the city has a better grasp of Oriental culinary heritage than Vintage Asia, and if you’ve been a foodie living in Kolkata, you’d already know this. But the Pan Asian fusion eatery located on the first floor of the JW Marriott always finds ways to surprise us. Take their Asian Street Food Trail, for instance, which started on June 8, and will go on till June 17; the festival menu has been curated by Chef Alexsander Cheng, who says he’s most influenced by flavours he encountered in his own childhood. His new menu features diverse and popular street food numbers, which are eaten across Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, China and Japan. We found an array of wholesome rice dishes, steamed proteins, clear veggie soups and sour pancakes. As exotic as it might sound to you, for Chef Cheng, it is simply about serving up plated nostalgia, which is why we were quite excited to get a first-hand look at his versions of fast-food cultures from around East Asia. 

We should mention that this street food trail has been designed with some of the most healthy, refined and nutritional options, which makes it a perfect winner for a summer menu. As much as we love our fried gyoza dumplings and wok-tossed Udon noodles, we were also thrilled to taste an assortment of delicious Asian cuisine. As we made our way down the unassumingly lit Vintage Asia dining room on a cloudy Friday afternoon, we found a coupe glass filled with a savoury Sweet Chilli Cashew nut Fruit Salad waiting for us. The tossed aromatic rendition of a fruit salad was just what we needed to open up our taste buds on a gloomy day. 

As we debated on ordering seconds, our noses filled up with the wonderfully tangy aroma of our appetiser, which happened to be the Isan Spiced Tossed Sausages. If you’ve ever tasted Isan cuisine, you’d know that the flavours of the Thai region are complex, and dominated by spiced herbs. The sausages make for the perfect co-appetiser with the Chiang Mai Crispy Prawn, which have a modest and self-effacing taste, while accommodating the freshness of the prawns, and the aftertaste of the peppery sausages.

We were served some very interesting Lontong Sayur as well, which is a hugely popular street food number from Jakarta; they’re basically compressed rice cakes, wrapped in banana leaves, and paired with a thick, but light peanut sauce and curry. The dish is filling, but will not leave you feeling bloated, which is exactly why it has carved a niche for itself as an ideal lunch for working folk, across Indonesia and Malaysia. 

We were then served the familiar Nasi Goreng, along with a bowl of Singaporean Bak Kut Teh; easily one of the most intriguing pork stews you will ever come across. The term Bak Kut Teh literally translates to Meat Bone Tea, and it’s a speciality soup that consists of pork ribs simmered to perfection in a complex broth made of herbs. Pairing the intensely flavourful and heady stew with the Nasi Goreng was a genius move, considering how the flavours complement each other to give you the perfect herbal explosion in your mouth. We reached for the ever-comforting bowl of ramen to soothe our overworked taste buds, and needless to say, it worked like a charm. 

On till June 17. Meal for two Rs 3,500 plus taxes