Hawkersan - South East Asian with a Twist!

Hawkersan is a fairly new restaurant which has sprouted up in the front end area of the sprawling Somerset hotel in MRC Nagar. As the name suggests, it's predominantly Asian cuisine with a distinguishing feature.

The concept works on the model of a course meal and you have 4 & 7 course meals for lunch and 5 & 7 course meals for dinner. There is no separate menu as such and the option for you is to have a full fleshed course meal based on the number of items which you wish to choose.

It is pretty elaborate and their course meals do touch upon every item you would look forward to while consuming a wholesome Pan Asian meal. There are starters, soups, salads, momo or bao preparation, main course and desserts.

I tried the 7 course dinner meal and it felt thoroughly justified. Started off with a juicy watermelon cooler as a welcome drink to start proceedings. Then arrived a delicious corn lentil starter infused with spices which was filled with aroma. The Lung Fung soup was delightful. They also served a wholesome spring rolls in a attractive presentable manner. It contains all the essentials to make one fall for it. The jackfruit based bao I felt could have been a tad better. The texture of the bun was super smooth but however the stuffing could have been a tad better.

In the main course we got a soupy noodles bowl and a rice with thai red curry. The bowl of noodles was filled to the brim consisting of different kinds of chinese veggies and was kind of nice to slurp over. The real winner however was the thai red curry which was simply sensational. The essence of coconut cream will no doubt bowl you hook line and sinker. We ended our course by polishing a couple of dessert jars one comprising of water chestnuts and fruits soaked in coconut milk and the other an evergreen chocolate offering.

On the whole, it was a very pleasing meal. The service was ever friendly and also the intervals of time needed to bring the next item in the fray was just spot on. The pricing seems quite competitive for such an expansive spread. All in all, if you're looking for a lovely chinese meal without thinking too much about what to choose and what not to, you can certainly try this specialty offering of Hawkersan which has the kind of wholesome spread that can surely cater to your needs.

Va Pho - Asian for the win!

Va Pho is delightfully Asian. The place is all bright, colourful and infused with traditional elements depicting the culture of Pan Asia. It isn't an exceptionally quiet place by any stretch and I wouldn't term it as the private setup ideal for a perfect fine dining ambiance but the buzz is kind of nice and it feels like you're right in the middle of China town especially with the immaculate surrounding local influence.

The Oriental spread traverses across a number of countries bringing to the fore chinese, thai, Vietnamese, indo, philipino, korean, burmese, Malaysian and Singapore cuisine. The menu itself is rather quirky with a mosaic of mandarin based touches. They have interesting categories like Bao's and Dim sums too in the mix.

We started proceedings by having a shot at the local Vietnamese soup titled 'Saigon Pho'. It was a light brownish soup with plenty of veggies circling in the liquid water. The flavouring was done up very nicely and left a lasting impression on the tongue.

On the starter/appetiser section, I tried the Bao's which are steamed buns with a choice of filling for which i went with the crispy BBQ mushroom. The buns were super duper soft and sprayed with mayo indicating a mexican feel but on the inside with the preparation of mushroom gave it a more south east asian touch. It went along really well forming a beautiful alliance.

On main course we tried the homemade wheat noodles which were slightly soaked and very thin in structure. It contained sauces and a bunch of ingredients making it good enough to consume by it's own. Anyways for accompaniment tasted the green curry potatoes which were both soft and crispy and touched upon with green curry sauce more in the nature of Thai cuisine.

We ended our course with the Burmese Falooda. It was pretty decent but I expected to be more filling and topped with a bunch of more ingredients. It nevertheless was good enough with the sweetened essence being largely prevalent.

Overall, the food can be termed to be a positive. If you're a meat eater chances are that you'll love to hog down this place. Another huge plus point is the rates. They are very aptly priced for the size, portions and spread which tilts it big time in it's favour. The service was done up amicably. A number of people were constantly trickling down and they were able to manage the situation rather well.

Va Pho is just in it's nascent stages but still witnessing thronging crowds which is a very good sign. They also have select offerings for lunch. Initial impressions tell me that they have embarked on a really stellar opening. Here's hoping they keep up the quality and raise the bar with time moving forward. Wishing the team of Va Pho all the very best and I hope to revisit very soon.