China Gate

Link square Mall, 3rd Floor, Linking Road, Bandra (W).
Tel: 2646 9003 / 2646 9004

Mon-Fri Dinner 800 per person (ladies 450 per person)
Service charge 5%, VAT 12.5%

Cuisine: Largely Chinese, with additions of Japanese, Thai and Korean.

Open for: Open for Lunch and Dinner. The restaurant can get awfully crowded during lunch on certain days of the week as it is very popular with the ‘kitty-party’ crowd.

Serve Alcohol: Yes

Parking: Valet available

Ambience:The first thing that is sure to strike you when you enter this restaurant is how spacious it is. Though they have, the prerequisite for any Chinese Restaurant, usual faux ponds with koi fish swimming in it, toads sprouting water, dragons greeting you at the door and Chinese silk paintings dominating a wall, this restaurant is done up extremely stylishly. Soft lighting lends warmth and comfortable rosewood tables and chairs are spaced widely enough to offer adequate privacy to each table.
The spacious floor space has been tastefully divided into areas which hold tables to seat large groups/families and those for couples and groups of four.

Staff;
Attentive, quick and courteous, though language was a slight problem with some. The manager was very attentive too, doing the rounds of the tables and guiding, chiding and keeping an eagle eye on the staff.

What we ate;

The buffet includes;

Soft drinks and fresh fruit juices

4 types of soup (2 veg and 2 non-veg)
(I had the chicken manchow soup, which with delicious)

A mind boggling array of starters with non-vegetarian choices far out favoring the vegetarian ones in number. The starters are mostly fried and steamed. 4 different types of sauces are the accompaniments.
(Do try the dumplings and the sticky rice starters)

A sushi counter
Vegetarian (mango sushi!) and non-vegetarian sushi which were strictly a-okay. The sushi wasn’t rolled very expertly, nor did it seem very fresh. Though the pickled ginger slices were good, the wasabi paste was extremely dry, the consistency of clay!

Main course
Steamed rice, fried rice and noodles. 4-5 varieties of vegetables/curries.
Once again, very little choice for vegetarians, with just 2 veg dishes. I had steamed rice with red Thai curry, the curry was really nice.

Dessert
The dessert counter showcased diamond-shaped Chinese desserts like chocolate, blackcurrant and lemon jellies (please avoid!) along with squares of tiramisu, cheesecake, gateau’s and torte’s (really, really good!) and wedges of tea cakes like butter cake, walnut cake etc (very dry!)
Do try the tiny cookies though, they were super-yum!
They also have a Baskin-Robbins ice cream counter with a dozen flavors to choose from.

I think you should know;
The staff do not inform you of what all the buffet compromises of.
The main course and dessert are served in the inside dining room, as a result of which most people unknowingly skip those or find out about only much later.
The buffet has limited choices for vegetarians.
The strong smell of the non-veg food being fried, on an open counter, could be off putting for vegetarians.

Golden Kiwi

On a recent visit to the supermarket I was greeted by these in-your-face banners advertising ‘Golden Kiwi’ with a picture showing a kiwi fruit cut in half displaying a lurid yellow color! So of course I had to head to the fruit section first, to pick it up immediately!

How Golden Kiwi differs from the regular Kiwi Fruit: The skin is less furry. It has fewer seeds than the green Kiwi. The texture of the fruit is just like a regular Kiwi fruit, minus the tart taste which I so love (Honestly, it tasted like Dudhi!) The only thing I liked about it was the cute plastic spoon-cum-knife that came with it.

Rs 45/- for 2