With a name like Oriental Blossom, which is just like any other name for a Chinese / SE Asian restaurant, you don't go in expecting to be wow-ed. But the last five reviews here all giving them five stars surely made it easy for us to decide to come here for dinner last night.
The restaurant is inside the Savannah Sarovar Premier Hotel. It's done up beautifully in striking shades of green and purple and yet maintain an understated chic look.
The menu showed a range of interesting options, other than the done to death Hakka- Schezuan-Ginger garlic saucy things. For the starters we chose a stuffed tofu in peanut sauce - which was a thick chunk of tofu stuffed with lightly flavoured vegetables- lightly coated and deep fried, served on a bed of a most delicious satay sauce. I'm not a big fan of deep fried starters, but even i'll admit that this was 12/10 on the scale of deliciousness. Crisp and nicely fried (simple things are rarely done beautifully) - it was crunchy until the last bite. The steamed veg dimsums accompanied by two sauces was perfection too.
We ordered a bowl of simple hakka noodles for the son, who gave it a two thumbs up (yeah he is a gourmand under 3 years of age) - it was lightly spiced, fresh veggies and no oily residue in the bowl.
For our mains we ordered a Chilli-Garlic noodles along with Shitake mushrooms in chilli and red wine sauce. The latter was a total winner, with fresh juicy bell peppers in all colours, the mushrooms were chewy and meaty and the sauce light and flavoursome. No gluggy, gluey cornflour to smother the tastebuds like every other so called 'oriental' restaurant does it. The chilli garlic noodles were made just as per our order, moderately spicy and not to give us heartburn for the rest of the night.
The menu has a very good variety of Thai, Chinese, Japanese cuisine (not sushi types). I want to try the tofu grilled with miso paste the next time and the Thai curries with Pad Thai.
If you love oriental food, then I'd say this place is well worth driving down even from MG Road.
Like I say in the title, after a long long time, we had a meal out where every single element was just perfect - food, service and ambience. Pricing wise - it's more reasonable that some of the snooty restaurants that charge nearly double for microscopic portions of crappy food.
I'm glad we have found a gem of a restaurant in the neighbourhood.
Only negative, which is not the restaurant's fault really, Sunday night, we were the only diners at 8PM, not that we are complaining. We got the most exquisite attentive service. I'm assuming people were busy with the Diwali shopping frenzy. And yeah, the music was mildly boring, but you serve me extraordinary food like that, I'm willing to eat it up even if Reshammiya is playing in the background.
Sorry, if i waxed eloquent in this review. Blame it on the excellent food :)
saffrontrail
