Eating out @ The Chinese

Went for dinner to The Chinese in Connaught Place last night. Had been hearing a lot of good stuff about the food there (esp. the Hunan dishes). It's perhaps the only restaurant I've been to which has a separate menu for hunan and szechwan dishes. Usually, most restaurants have just one menu which is an assortment of Cantonese, Hunan and Szechwan food. 

About the food, well, I did think it is overhyped. At least the Szechwan dishes. Don't get me wrong here. The food isn't particularly bad, but, it isn't wow! material either. In fact - and I hate to say this - the vegetarian fare was much better than the non-veg one (barring the prawn dimsums). We ordered a fish in szechwan sauce and some prawns in black bean sauce - both of which were very average dishes. The fish was very dry and not too soft (considering it was a 'fresh' river sole). There was neither black nor any bean in the prawns which clearly showed that the chef mixed two or more sauces to come up with his own version of the black bean one. The prawns 'shao maao' dimsums were very yummy, though. The dough wasn't very thick,  and the meat inside was piping hot. Quite a breather this, since I've been looking out for better alternatives to those sadakchaap momos. The last time I ate an original dimsum was probably at Royal China, Bombay around two years ago, so I had nearly forgotten what it tastes like. Thankfully, The Chinese reminded me in time. However, the stand-out dishes were the chinese greens in garlic which, even though it isn't exotic, was absolutely wonderful. The veggies were juicy, the mix of garlic and butter was just right and it complemented it's spicier cousin very well. Here was another assortment of veggies in a sauce which had a strong vinegar flavour cooked in what seemed to be black pepper sauce. Moreover, it was sans any onion or garlic. I'm pretty apprehensive about a no-onion-and-garlic dish because more often than not, the chef ends up destroying it by overloading it either with spices or just serving something horribly bland. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found that the sauce was not too spicy  - which meant I could actually taste the veggies - and had a nice vinegar flavouring to it. 

I can't say much about the service because the restaurant was nearly empty so waiters were always around to serve us. The decor was pretty run-of-the-mill too: walls covered in blue with chinese alphabets embedded on them. Dragon designs covering the ceiling didn't do much to reduce the garishness as well. Overall, a pretty decent restaurant for a quick business lunch or if you want to taste decent chinese without shelling out too much. Will I go there again? Yes, because I'd like to try out the Hunan menu. The pickled prawns dish sounded a bit interesting. 

Rating 2.3/3/5.

Location: Adjacent to Competent House, F-Block, Middle Circle, Connaught place.

P.S. Still have a few leftover veggies which I am now going to dig into.