Thursday, September 5, 2013

Chao - Treated in Style!!!

CHAO - the word itself means different things in different languages and I think that is pretty much the essence of our dining experience here.It is up to you to decide which language you prefer. Chao is a fine dining restaurant situated in the ever busy T.Nagar and serves delicacies from the south-east part of the world which includes Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine.

Generally during showcases, restaurants display the new items on the menu and that makes us familiar with the variety and helps us in recommending the same dishes to another person.But dinner at CHAO was different.We were treated to the Chef's special and that was a surprise!!

We were escorted to a private dining room in the basement and the most striking thing about the place is the interior design.Beautiful decor with dim lighting and artistically amazing decorative.The place was quiet and we had a few smiling faces waiting for the chef's order to start serving the dishes.The Chef came in to give us a small introduction of the kind of dishes that were about to be served.

We started our evening with 'Sup Ayam' which was basically chicken soup and it was an indonesian recipe.Perfect blend of spices with lovely aroma.Our dining room was cold and warm soup was the perfect dish.Gulped it down in no time.

The first starter to arrive at our table was the 'Crispy Corn with Spinach'. I've never eaten spinach this crispy and flavourful. Just completely fell in love with it and it was my favourite dish of the evening.

Next at our table was the 'Namprik Gai' which is a Thai dish - it is stir fried chicken and this was good too.Slightly sweet but pretty delicious.

After wiping our plates clean, it was time for the next dish which was 'Drunken Noodles with Bang Bang Salad'. The name of the dish was so different and we had a round of laughter and making fun of the poor banged up salad and the drunk noodles..!! :) This was again a good dish and the salad was nice and the texture was pretty good.


Our next dish was 'Nasi Kuning' which was served with 'Sambal'. This is typically our coconut rice with a twist and the sambal was spicy and the perfect combo for Nasi Kuning.When asked, chef told us that Indian cuisine is pretty much close to Thai and malaysian cuisine and hence the similarity in dishes.


The best part of the evening was that we only had one vegetarian at the table but the non-vegetarians enjoyed the veg food just as much the vegetarian herself did.We had some great dishes like the 'Braised broccoli with Tofu' and 'Poached Pok Choy with Garlic'. The tofu dish was very nice and the broccoli was cooked to perfection but what stole the show was the pok choy because I never knew you could make such a wonderful creation out of it and there was such abundance of garlic in the dish visually but it wasn't overpowering the dish at all.


The last two dishes to arrive at our table was the 'T.Shanghai Chicken' and 'Choo Chee Goong'. Once again, these names were so interesting and everybody was so curious to know why the dishes were called that but the chef conveniently concluded that it was a secret!!Choo Chee Goong was a prawn dish which was once again great.I do not eat much prawn but I definitely liked this one.



It was finally time for dessert and the name suggested a really classy dish - 'Chocolate Mousse with orange Chantalay and strawberries in reduced red wine'. Although the red wine part excited a few friends, I was interested in knowing how the reduction process was done.Chef was kind enough to give us the recipe to this dish because he was pretty sure we wouldn't get our hands on the ingredients.. :). It was a delightful dessert with just enough dark chocolate topped with orange chantalay and the strawberry reduced in red wine was just yumm!!

As a special request, we also got to try the 'Pumpkin Custard' which is on their regular menu and it was just amazing.I couldn't even get a picture of it because the dish literally disappeared within seconds.

On the whole, if you want to be pampered with food from around the world and experience fine dining at it's best, this is the place to be.Kudos to the team at Chao.

CHAO
Address: N Boag Rd, Lakshimi Colony, Thiyagaraya Nagar, Chennai, TN 600017
Phone:044 6555 5553




1 comment:

KJ said...

thanks for sharing your experience.
I'm looking forward to take my wife to this place.

cheers
Katheresh