Lurking around the first floor of the Shangri-La Hotel before a meeting, I happened to stumble across 19 Oriental Avenue. The menu seemed quite interesting and I made up my mind to visit it soon. There must have been a little residual magic in the air, or a fairy trudging around the area on her daily beat, because about an hour later, the nice people at Shangri-La invited me for a cosy little lunch at 19 Oriental Avenue, with a bunch of other like minded foodies. Talk about luck!
19 Oriental Avenue is a well laid out oriental restaurant featuring four dining areas – a private dining room, Thai, Japanese and Chinese, each with it’s own kitchen close at hand (except the PDR). Open and airy, I’m quite sure you’ll like the ambiance whenever you visit. My experience at 19 Oriental Avenue was one of the few meals I can look back upon as perfect. One of those experiences you wouldn’t mind repeating exactly the same way, every time. The company of some very nice people didn’t hurt either.
Our appetizers comprised a sushi platter, a sashimi platter, crispy duck rolls, som tam, crispy mushrooms with honey chili sauce and steamed pokchoy & mushroom dumplings. While they were all quite nice, especially the crispy duck rolls with hoisin sauce, I’ll have a hard time forgetting the Sashimi platter. While it wasn’t the standard format, the presentation was one of the best I’ve seen. A large ceramic bowl, full of crushed ice, garnished with shells, little sprigs and leaves to look like a fantasy sea-bed of sorts with assorted fish placed at different locations. Even the photos don’t do it justice really. The Sashimi platter included raw salmon, yellow tail, octopus, tuna, scallops and sea anemone. Brilliant, even if I’m repeating myself. I do wish Sashimi grade fish was available to us poor souls via retail. I’m sure we won’t achieve the beauty of Chef’s dish, but we can try, can’t we?
Tum Yam was our soup – a good choice I think. A heavier soup would have left us incapable of doing justice to what was to come.
For our main courses, 19 Oriental served us mixed vegetables, steamed snapper, Thai black pepper chicken, lobster with garlic sauce, mapo tofu, seafood bunkayaki, asparagus with garlic and chili & nut fried rice. All the dishes, especially the mixed vegetables were well very prepared. The Seafood Bunkayaki stood out proudly though. Another simple creation, the Seafood Bunkayali at 19 Oriental Avenue comprised three oyster shells on a bed of flaming salt, filled with grilled prawn, scallop and squid smothered with a mildly spicy (miso?) mayo. Excellent!
Dessert was Thai, Mango Sticky Rice and a few other samplers which I quickly forgot as the sticky rice was delicious.
I’m not about to ruin a surprise by naming items, but if you’re looking for a large oriental selection of food and don’t mind shelling out a bit, 19 Oriental Avenue will, I’m quite sure, fit the bill perfectly.
Meal for two: INR 3000++ onwards depending on your order. For example, the Wagyu Hobayaki is INR 3000++
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