By Vivek Singh Chauhan

New Delhi, Jan 26 (IANS): With the Chinese New Year round the corner, as restaurants serving Chinese cuisine are gearing up for the celebrations, some mouth-watering dishes were discovered at the Jasmine at Hotel The Royal Plaza.

The restaurant, which is well-known for its Schezwan and Cantonese Cuisine, has come up with dishes like Mandarin prawn, Beijing duck rolls, diced chicken in chilly coriander and onion cake, among others, which form the signature elements of the chef's crafted menu.

For starters, while my taste buds were more than satisfied with the juicy Mandarin prawns and onion cake. However, the Beijing duck rolls and diced chicken in chilly coriander could not tinglee my taste.

"We add flavour of stock like fish stock for fish dishes, chicken stock for chicken items and vegetable stock for special vegetable dishes. Also, some flavored oil is also used in our cuisine," Atul Shanker Mishra, Executive Chef, Hotel The Royal Plaza told IANS.

The beginning seemed to be usual, but I was still hopeful.

How can we forget to mention dumplings when it comes to authentic Chinese? The mushroom corn dumplings were the ones I preferred, not being a huge fan of brocolli (the restaurant serves brocolli and sesame seed dumpling), and it came up to my expectations.

In the Dim Sum basket was served prawn coriander and spicy chicken ginger, which could be paired with different flavoured soups and also special Jasmine Tea.

In the main course, the dish that caught my eye was the braised lobster in black bean sauce. Amazing as the ingredients sounded, that included lobster pieces, garlic, black beans, some vegetables, chicken broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, oil and cooking wine, and usually served with either steamed white rice or rice vermicelli, the dish turned out to be as delicious as I was expecting.

Apart from that, sliced lamb kung pao, fried chicken in hot bean sauce were wonderful.

Also, there are many options available for vegetarians, who can go for tofu with chilli bean sauce and stir fried pok choy with black mushroom which can be served with steamed jasmine rice or home-made noodles.

"We have a lots of options available for vegetarians like, fry corn herbal salt in golden basket, green vegetable soup, mushroom corn dumpling, broccoli sesame seed dumpling, tofu with chilly bean sauce, Stir fry Pock Choy with black mushroom, Stir fry Chinese green Mushroom in sweet and sour sauce, assorted vegetable with dry red chilly," the chef added.

The quality of food served was moderate, but I found the service of the restaurant not up to the mark. A little bit of "extra patience" was required as it took a bit more than the usual time to being served the ordered dish. Improving their service will add to the value of the establishment.

One thing which you will surely fall in love with is Jasmine special home-made ice-cream, which comprises coconut milk, jaggery and other flavours.

The chef also mentioned that the Chinese relish with few lucky foods every New Year, such as fish dumplings, spring rolls, tangyuan (sweet rice balls), good fortune fruit, Niangao (moon cake) and longevity noodles.

The Chinese New Year is on January 28.

FAQs:

Where: Jasmine at the The Royal Plaza, 12 Ashoka Road

Meal for two: Rs 3,000

Timings: Lunch 12 noon to 3 p.m., Dinner: 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.