Westin, Velachery, Chennai is running a ‘All You Can Eat Dimsum Festival’ for two weeks beginning 21^st March 2016. We have been on Dimsum for a while now which our foodie friends know about and boy! weren’t we super excited to be there to get a taste of it.  For all those Chinese food lovers in Chennai, authentic Chinese food is lot different from what we eat in most of the restaurants here and painful truth is Gobi Manchurian is Not AT ALL Chinese food.  That was a big letdown for me.  But having said this, it was also evident that true Chinese food is lot tastier, lighter and quite healthy.  Now let us proceed to our review…

Interesting point of this festival is everything offered in the menu is unlimited.  We have wontons, soup, 5 vegetarian dumplings, and dessert served along with aromatic unlimited Jasmine Tea.  We have interesting julienne ginger in honey sauce and Schezwan Chili paste not spicy but with a kick that spells chili as we take it in.

Dimsums  mean Snacks in Chinese.

We had

1. Steamed asparagus dumpling
2. Fried mushroom dumpling
3. Pan fried chives dumpling and
4. Deep fried Turnip cake.

Refined flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, corn starch are used to form the outer covering of our favorite dumplings and the choice is purely dependent on the stuffing inside.

It was a beautiful gastronomic journey down the lane with Chinese cuisine and the food was exemplary.  Wontons were crispy, mildly spiced with a touch of sweetness, a perfect snack to start the tasting.  Soup was clear with noodles in it and gave us a firsthand experience of Chinese spices, so delicate and flavorful.

Chinese eat their dumplings without sauce and sometimes with thin soy sauce and light vinegar. We ate it the Chinese way without knowledge and it was light and awesome.

Desserts included Pumpkin Pudding and mango pudding.  Pumpkin pudding gave us an insight into the potential of using our yellow pumpkin to make sweet dishes.  Unlimited pumpkin pudding is a blessing in disguise and except for the stomach refusing to take in more.  Mango pudding had few chunks of mango (would have preferred it to be fresh) with sago and white gravy – it tasted like yoghurt and also milk. Not sure what it was meant to be.

Out of the festival section, we also had a taste of the Veg Chilli Basil Fried Rice and Stir fried vegetables. Crunchy vegetables were so delicately spiced and made a perfect combination with fragrant sticky rice, Al Dente and a bit chewy very different than the rice we have here.  Chinese gravy is rarely dense.    We also had the vegetables with Jasmine white rice and we just cannot ignore the aromatic jasmine smell emanating from it that induces to eat more. Normally fragrant rice does not go well with side dish but this one proved otherwise.

We also had Sourtail and AppleJul mocktails and it punched the fruity flavors in abundance and was a great respite for the summer heat we are facing today.

Thanks to Chef Yatendra Rawat for his time in throwing us some light on the Chinese cuisine.

What we reviewed is the first week menu; the items in the second week menu will be different.

Details :

All You Can Eat Dimsum Festival

Running from 22 March 2016 to 3 April 2016

Location

5 Senses, The Westin Chennai, Velachery, Chennai.

Price

Rs 1499 + taxes