Mandarin Kitchen

2100 hours, Aug 7, 2016, Sunday, Four Bungalows:

The Prelude:
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Talk about identifying niches. When you are done with areas like food innovations and location grabs and culinary gimmickries, why should the time element be left behind? Enter Mandarin Kitchen, a Mandarin (duh?? What else?) food delivery cum small dine in restaurant which caters to the audience of the zombie hours. Operating from 1900 of twilight till straight 0400 in the morning, there is still a dearth of eateries who satisfy hunger cravings at these hours of the night. MK is one of the early adopters of this gap fulfillment, and is bound to have its own set of me-toos soon tagging behind.

The Personality:
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A joint venture of two friends, Mitesh Jaisinghani and Mohsin Thanawala, MK is just a one month old baby. The interesting fact is that though neither of the principals are from the hospitality background (the former is a non practising law graduate running the wwwlaceandvelvet.com, the latter is a practicing homeopathic doctor no less), the finesse with which they churn out their creations reeks of professionalism. Way to go.

The Platter:
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This was a food tasting session where the choice of items was left to the restaurant. And this is what we had:

Chicken Tom Kha soup ( 4.5 / 5): A fellow reviewer, Yash Shiralkar has described this soup as “I'm going to go out on a limb here: Best soup of my life…”. I kind of echo his sentiments. This was pure coconut milk, with dunked veggie delights - galangal, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, coriander leaves - and chicken bits. Sweetish as coconut is wont to be, and you would drool over it if you like sweet. Also unlike at most places, the galangal here was shredded and not sliced, and did not come in the way too stodgily to ruin the atmosphere. Overall the concoction was premium, creamy, milky white, and offered a glimpse of how the cookie is going to crumble next.

Teriyaki Prawns (4.5 / 5) Fried prawns tossed in sweet and salty Japanese Teriyaki sauce with hints of ginger and garlic. The prawns were jumbo sized, juicy and spongy, the accompanying red chili julienne added the perfect hotness, there was a little bit of tang, and a perfect balance of ginger garlic. A definite must – have over here.

Oriental Barbeque Fish (3.5 / 5): Batter coated fried Basa chunks tossed in a tangy sweet BBQ sauce and flavoured with curry leaves. The woe was that the sweetness was slightly more pronounced than warranted, and for people who do not like sweet, this might be a put off. I do, and for me, it worked like magic.

Kung Pao Chicken (4.5 / 5): Kung Pao chicken, for the uninitiated, commonly consists of diced marinated chicken. The wok is seasoned and then chili peppers, ginger, garlic, chicken broth, sugar, cooking oil, corn starch, spring onion, capsicum and salt and pepper to taste are flash fried to add fragrance to the oil. The chicken cubes were soft and ergo fresh, the marinade was medium spicy and the Kung Pao choice, in hindsight seemed a wise decision.

Buttered Crispy Veg (3 / 5):Chunks of greens batter coated and fried, and flavoured with butter garlic and herbs. Nice and crunchy, though I would strictly advise the non vegetarians to stick to their meat.

Chicken Wok : (4 / 5): With Fried rice and burnt garlic sauce. It was naturally coloured with ground chili paste looked pretty vibrant. The quantity was jaw dropping, the garlic sauce simply awesome and the chicken cubes sufficiently present. Had piping hot, it is a whole meal unto itself.

The Postlude:
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This place is just a month old but is strongly gaining ground. The quality of food is evident here. The veggies and the meat are sourced fresh every day. The sauces are made fresh in-house, trouncing the omnipresent practice of getting them out of a bottle. Zero MSG. Premium Sunflower cooking oil. Food grade premium packaging. The food alone would have been a winner, that it caters to unorthodox hours is a bonus. Starting with a mere delivery concept, they have been necessitated to set up a small dine in area, and even that is now falling short of the response generated. This is one high flying stallion I would like to bet a few dollars upon.

The Parameters:
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The Food Quotient: Food Quality: 4.5/5, Food Choices: 4/5, Food Portions: 4 / 5, Food Presentation: 3.5 / 5
The Other Determinants: Location: 4 / 5, Cleanliness: ---, Warmth: 5 / 5
The Hygiene Factors: Ambiance: ---, Space Quotient: ---, Delivery Time: 5 / 5
The Conclusives: Pricing: 4.5 / 5, Overall Experience: 5 / 5, Will I visit Again: 5 / 5.

The Ps:
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