Chinese New Year at Cx!

Firstly, Happy Chinese New Year for all who care! 2009 is the year of the Ox and well, its a good way to have a zodiac based on animals and not star constellations..

So why the interest for me? Well I learnt that the food chain Chefs-Xinlai have opened a fusion restaurent "Cx" (Although the "C" looks pretty different) in Mannagudda and yesterday I happened to be in the vicinity only to learn that they had a Cantonese Chef brought here for a week (Jan 26- Feb 1) and had actually made a menu for this week only incorporating the guy's original chinese recipes: No people, Gobi Manchurian is NOT chinese, its actually an Indian creation believe it or not!

I thus decided to go there yesterday afternoon and was really surprised by the extent of "China" they brought in here: The outside is full of Chinese paper decorations in the shape of the famous Paper lanterns, Dragons and Chinese Letters and just outside the inner area is a small outer section with a couple of tables and the setting is in accurate chinese style (Watch any of the chinese martial art movies and you will see the tables and the walls in one scene atleast), but the real treat is inside..

I guess air conditioning is a given these days but what about Chinese herbs and aromas giving a soothing fragrance to the decor? Speaking of decor, more paper decorations hung from the ceiling and, according to the waiter atleast, the background song was from a recent film of a very famous chinese actress Ariel Lin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Lin). So far so good, I was already impressed with the extent of originality and the waiters looked chinese but thats true for most dhaba's also here lol..

In comes a waiter with a special menu and the regular one, I didnt even open the regular menu! The special menu had 4 sides of food items and most of it made me think of american tv serials where they talk about the food and I go- WTF is that?? Not this time! The waiter patiently explains to me what all the food items are and its gets tougher to decide what to take the longer he talks..

Finally i decide on a course of Chicken Dumplings (Starters), Spicy Chicken in Royal Thai Sauce and the Chinese Festival Special Fried Rice (Although I also wanted to try the Kwaithyao/Meifoon for the main course)! The starters were excellent in the sense that they were delicious with no frying and also light on the palate while the Saucy Chicken was succulent like hell.. The main course was Seafood endowed with Prawns, Fillet fish, Squid, Crab and something I am yet to identify along with Blue cabbage, green tomatoes and blood-red carrots.. My best thought was the table ware: The plates were real different in shape and the dumplings actually came in a steam basket:-

Here is the Thai Chicken:-

Sadly I got no pic of the rice items as I had them parcelled, but the icing on the cake, and it actually didnt spoil my mood, was when I was leaving the restuarent and the owner tells me to come again- IN KONKANI!! Now he pretty sure heard me speaking in konkani as I was talking there but I was surprised at that..

If you want a treat of the actual chinese eating experience (Or atleast as close as I got), head over to Cx, Mannagudda main road!