I went to Pondicherry Cafe quite recently for the Cantonese Food Festival happening there until the 6th of March.
To start of, as you enter be prepared to get transported into the towns of rural China with the elegant red and gold decor and the smell of fresh food cooking away. Cantonese cuisine is one of the most popular cuisines originating from the Guangdong Province in China.
Chef Zhao charmed us with his simple but beautiful cooking style, incorporating some authentic and delicious Cantonese flavours into his food.
Lightly cooked in less oil with fresh veggies and spicy sauces like the sweet and sour sauce, this cuisine is both healthy and tasty at the same time.
This was a buffet and apart from Cantonese they had a wide variety of Indian and Continental food too.
To start with I tried their vegetable dumplings. Soft and well cooked dumplings stuffed with chopped cabbage, french beans and carrots cooked until tender, served with spicy soy and wasabi made for a great start to the meal.
I then tried the Vegetable clear soup. Heartwarming and delicious, a healthy clear soup with a tinge of that typical flavour with the goodness of veggies makes for quite a meal in itself.
The mains started of with some authentic Hakka noodles. Well cooked noodles tossed with fresh veggies in basic soy sauce has always been a favourite. One of favourite Chinese dishes since childhood, the Hakka noodles here didn’t disappoint.
I coupled these up with some vegetable fried rice. Short grained thick rice engulfed with boiled veggies and basic Chinese spices went well with the stir fried veggies I had.
The Chef surprised us by serving a beautiful concoction of stir fried veggies in a sweet and sour Kung Pao sauce in this cute little wooden pan to us. Baby corn, mushrooms, broccoli and Lotus stem when wok tossed on a high flame with this lovely sauce can definitely leave you drooling.
Apart from the food we tried their Lip smacking cocktail which was the Rose Vodka cocktail. Trust me this is the best cocktail I’ve had till date and I’ve had a lot of them! Vodka infused with fresh rose petals, whole white sugar and fresh mint leaves with a tinge of white rum makes for such a refreshing and beautiful drink. It glides over your tastebuds like silk. Highly recommended.
They say the best part of a meal are the desserts and Pondicherry has a large spread of them. I got excited like a child looking at all the chocolate and colourful ice creams around. They had both French and Indian desserts.
The Mocha Crumble was basically a small little French pastry flavoured with Vanilla and dark coffee. This is for the coffee lovers. I personally felt this deserved to be a bit more moist.
The Baked yogurt is for the yogurt fans. Curd baked with fresh apricot and chilled to perfection makes for a good palette cleanser.
Apart from this the Creme Brûlée, fruit custard, dark chocolate brownies and Badami kheer also were quite extraordinarily good.
The London Dairy Tiramisu ice cream made a perfect end to a wonderful meal. I mean we all love tiramisu which is a coffee and cream based dessert and we all love ice cream. But when both get together it’s absolute magic.
I had a wonderful experience overall with the lovely hospitality, well done interiors and of course delicious food.
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