Bli's Restaurant Reviews: Nanking, New Delhi, India

A beautiful surprise waited for us as we sat in our seats. For a couple of seconds, we thought “No, this can’t be right!!” But it was. And it was awesome. Our napkins had our family name on it! We asked our waiter about it and he said matter of factly, “Because you guys are our regular customers and we wanted to show our appreciation”. It’s sentiments like this that distinguish Nanking from the other Chinese restaurants in the city: Their excellent service and the fact that pay attention to the little details that really matter. 

 

My dad was so excited to see this. Well, we all were. We
contemplated taking one back home as a souvenir.
But decided against it at the last minute.

The food at Nanking is incomparable to the food at the other Chinese restaurants I have eaten at in New Delhi and even in other parts of the world. If Chinese food had a section representing American Soul food, this restaurant would be it. And by that, I am not talking about the style of food preparation but about the fact that the food here is made with love. It comes from the soul and willingly nourishes it. This restaurant knows its clientèle well and provides mouth watering array of authentic Chinese dishes.

Our waiter helped us out a lot with our order and eventually we decided on a variety of starters: Jumbo Prawn Chinese Grill, Harkao, Pan Fried Gyoza and Chinese Cabbage Coriander Dumplings. 

The awesome-licious Harkao

Pan Fried Gyoza. This starter comes with soya and
mustard sauce.  Delicious!

The prawn may not look that big but trust me, its jumbo.
They don't kid around when they call them jumbo prawns!

If there was a word that superlatively described 'best', I would say that these dumplings deserved that word. Especially the Gyozas. I love Gyozas. They are my favourite dumplings. Mainly because they are unpretentious and I, being half Japanese, find them to be a familiar, comforting sight.

For the main course, we ordered clay pot rice with Chinese mushrooms, prawns and chicken, seafood pan fried noodles, this boneless pomfret fish dish (the dish isn't on the menu but if you're nice about it and ask the waiters for a pomfret dish, you might just get the dish that we usually get :)) and Buddha's Delight. 

The clay pot rice gets cooked in these small pots
 that they then present the rice in.

Yes, looks like very small potions but they are not.
Mainly because I took seconds!

People who know me know that I do not eat fish. Except for tuna and salmon (Why? I don't know. It's so weird that I can eat tuna and salmon in their raw form- Sashimi style- but if I so much as look at a cooked trout, I puke.). But this fish, this fish has got to be the most glorious fish dish in the entire world. The fish is perfectly cooked and is soft and delicate. It doesn't smell of fish (I think that's why I don't like eating fish. Because even when you bake fish, it still smells of fish!) and the accompanying sauce has a hint of garlic and a wee tang. This dish has the power to convert the biggest fish hater (me) into a semi fish hater (me!) and to maybe make that said fish hater (me) think about consuming other fish dishes and products! Pickled Herrings anyone?

The clay pot rice, as the name suggests, is rice cooked and served in a clay pot. If there was a way for me to make this at home I'd probably be eating clay pot rice everyday than normal white rice cooked in the rice cooker. The addition of the chicken, prawns and mushrooms flavours the rice gently but give out this burst of  beautiful aroma that permeates through the rice. 

The pan fried noodles are really good and they are my brother's favourite dish here at this restaurant. I love how glossy they look under the soothing room lights (They are afterall, panfried. The noodles I mean. Not the room :p) and how bits of the noodles are crunchy and parts are soft. These noodles come with an assortment of seafood: Squid, shell fish, prawns, and white fish (which I didn't eat because well, the whole fish convert thing just lasted for a couple of minutes. I went straight back to being a fish hater the minute I finished that pomfret!). All in all a pretty good dish!

The only dish that I did not really like was the Buddha's Delight because it tasted like vegetables in hot chilli garlic sauce. And the sauce was really very hot. Like really very spicy. Like so spicy that I had to down half of my mojito just to get rid of the acrid spice burn off my tongue! But there were water chestnuts in the Buddha's delight and I just love water chestnuts! Crunchy and crisp, how can anyone not like water chestnuts?

Oh I forgot the drinks! I had orignially ordered a White Russian but they didn't have the Kahlua liquor so I asked for a Mojito, mum ordered a Margarita  and my brother ordered a Yellow Jacket Mocktail.

Mojito and  the Yellow Jacket

The Mojito tasted good. But I usually like whole mint leaves and lemon slices in my mojito and I missed those in the drink. The last time I had really good Mojito was at this Sheesha joint in Westfield mall in London. So, I think that unknowingly I compare each mojito that I have drunk after that night to that one. But such is life. 

My brother's drink on the other hand was really nice. Normally I don't like pineapple juice but I really loved it in the mocktail and although I know that the Yellow Jacket is made up of pinapple, orange and lemon juice, there was a certain coconut-y essence in that drink that really elevated it into something totally different. 

As is with all people, I love freebies. So when you get free ice-cream at the end of your meal (for being super awesome dinner guests!) you kind of feel giddy and happy like a kid on a merry-go-round. I won't waste my time describing the dessert except to say that its a simple dessert of Vanilla icecream and fritters and that it provides the perfect end to the perfect meal . 

It depends on the season really. Sometimes you may get banana fritters, sometimes date fritter (my favourite by the way.) and sometimes just plain fritters with icecream. It's the thought that counts and well, Nanking is cool like that. I'm sure that there are Chinese restaurants in the city where the food is as delicious as at Nanking. But you cannot beat the service that you get here. Where else would you get napkins with your name on it or free ice cream at the end of your meal? Where else would waiters suggest items on the menu not according to the price but according to the taste? 

Only at Nanking baby. Only at Nanking.