‘You like simple food. That’s why I like you,’ said Chef Liang of Pan Asian at ITC Maratha when we went there for lunch last Sunday.
We’ve been friends for more than a decade. My constant request, when I go to his restaurant, is the Beijing-style double-cooked pork in black bean sauce. A dish I had first love withwhen I went there as a part of a group of bloggers invited for a restaurant tasting. K, whom he refers to as ‘madame’, is fond of his seafood dishes. She tells him what she feels and each time chef Liang comes back with just what she had in mind.
I have always felt that a restaurant called ‘Pan Asian’ does a disservice to chef Chef Liang’s repertoire of Chinese cooking. I was happy to hear from Mr Atul Bhalla that this will be redressed. Pan Asian is going to be the replaced by ITC Hotels’ by Yi Jing which will be helmed by Chef Liang who will dish out his version of Chinese comfort food.
I am on a chicken, veggies and rice/ 1 roti/ 1 sourdough diet at the moment. Double-cooked pork was replaced by chicken in black bean, soya and garlic. There were stir-fried veggies. K wanted prawns. And egg fried rice
The vegetables were wiped clean by us. Who would have thought that the Karmakars would do so but, that’s what age does to you. And it was quite delicious to be fair.
My chicken was so magically done that one would not think that it was chicken unless told so. Lean cuts of meat, rendered surprisingly juicy. Intricately flavoured with black bean sauce.
The prawns cooked for K tasted of the sea and were rendered just right. She would have liked it to be a bit less sweet, but the quality of cooking won her over.
Chef Liang downplays himself when he says that he cooks ‘simple food’.’ It is the simple that requires the highest amount of dexterity to win over hearts.
This food is no doubt simple in the modern culinary world which is all about fermenting, foraging and bringing the farm to the table, markets damned.
Yet I would go out on a limb and say that if you were to close your eye and tell me about first dish to come to your mind in terms of the sheer joy it gave, it will be a simple dish.
Or perhaps I am a simpleton, who doesn’t appreciate the complexities of food.
Ps: Now can I have a portion of that chicken stir fried in black bean sauce, with egg fried rice and stir fried vegetables please?
