With Kolkata’s love for the bite-sized, rotund, steamed dumplings stuffed with exotic fillings growing by the day, most of the city’s top Asian outlets are lining up delectable options for this item. JW Marriott Kolkata’s Oriental fine diner Vintage Asia, too, has come up with a flavourful and exotic array of dimsums to make your Saturday afternoons exciting.
Named Dimsum Saturdays, the menu has been specially curated by their Oriental speciality chef, Alexsander Cheng, who has experimented with a great variety of exotic ingredients to come up with a wide array of dimsums including Crispy Bean Curd Skin Roll filled with Shrimp, Steam Chicken Glutinous Rice and Golden Puff besides others. “There are over 200 types of dimsums in China and the ones we are rustling up here are the most popular and exotic,” shares Chef Cheng.
As we settled in for a gastronomic onslaught, we were offered a cool and refreshing Vanilla Bourbon Iced tea to begin with. The drink was exotic with a smoky after taste that lingers much after you have it. The Bourbon vanilla essence, for a change, had a mild scent, much closer to the authentic Madagascar ones.
We were first served with the Barbeque Chicken steamed rice rolls. These drool-worthy rolls -- made of potato flour, wheat flour and rice flour -- drenched in Kikkoman soy sauce were steamed to perfection and the hint of celery added to the aroma and flavour. We only wished that there were more of the delectable tiny pieces of barbeque chicken inside.
The next to arrive was a dish of pan-seared turnip cake with chilli, onion and garlic flakes. The square cakes made with boiled radish were soft and tasteful.
You can also choose from asparagus dumplings, lotus root dumpling, chicken shumai and prawn dumpling, which are equally delectable and well-cooked.
Before we could get over the delicious turnip cakes, we were floored by the Pak choy prawn with black pepper sauce and Pork Gyoza. Both the dishes were succulent and mildly spiced and went well with the accompanying condiments.
The chicken broth soup that arrived next, was bland in taste and acted as a great palate cleanser. But what bowled us over was the Lotus Leave Steam Bekti fish -- a Taiwanese delicacy. The fish wrapped in lotus leaf with ginger strips is slow cooked and tastes heavenly.
The main course comprised Sichuan Dan-Dan noodles with minced chicken soya sauce and Ching Qin style chicken with mushroom and bamboo shoots. The noodles were so tasty that it needed no side dish. The smell of the bamboo shoots lent the chicken dish a very unique flavour that was sweet and piquant at the same time.
We ended the ‘foodathon’ with double boiled pear with longan, water chestnut and goji berry, a light, refreshing and toothsome sweet dish. The pear boiled in sugar syrup was not overly sweet and retained its original taste, making it a perfect choice to call it a day.
Dimsum Saturdays take place at Vintage Asia from 12.30 pm to 3.00 pm. Price for one: Rs 1,111 ++ without alcohol