If you *really *love Chinese cuisine and have even a little
knowledge about it, then NEVER venture into Nanking.
However, if you are a pucca roadside dhabba Chinese food lover or if your
awareness of Chinese is limited to’Hakka Noodle’ and that is all that Chinese
ever meant to you, then this is The place.
Some advertisements in the local dailies prompted me and my
family to try out Nanking. Since we love
Chinese Cuisine(and yes, sometimes we even forgive the roadside Chinese stalls
too) we went in expectantly. Nanking proclaims
that they are a ‘Chinese restaurant’ so we hoped we’d find some good food
there.
It was disaster from the very beginning. I am the kind of
person who never usually regrets anything in life but this one time, I did…I
regret going for that lunch at Nanking.
The Ambience:
It is a tiny but neatly done up place which boasts of a
major influence of Feng Shui.
The Service:
The service is pretty fast(Wonder why? Do they think they
will have hungry customers queuing up? They definitely won’t, if those people
know what they will be served inside.) and the menu card lists reasonable
prices for all the dishes.
The Food:
I was ready to forgive their taste in doing up the place but
was shocked to see their abominable taste of Chinese cuisine. Can you believe
it – an eatery that calls itself ‘Nanking Chinese Restaurant’ serves Prawns in Oyster
Sauce with ‘CORIANDER’?
Chicken Lollipop was served with ‘kanda’(Onions) and green
chutney. Even the roadside stalls know better than that about Chinese food.
Agreed, the taste in general of all that was served wasn’t bad,
but come on, why do you need to label yourself as a ‘Chinese Restaurant’ and
then not only dupe but shock your clientele with ‘rasta ka sasta chinese’?
The Worst:
There were no desserts! Unforgivable.
There are people in Nagpur
who swear by Nanking and I cannot even begin
to imagine why. Maybe the day I went for lunch, their chef was on a holiday and
the cleaner cooked up the meal in a hurry. I hope that was the case because
otherwise, I have another page-full to write about the general Napurian’s taste.