Memories of China at the Vivanta by Taj, holds many memories for me, being a resident of its neighborhood years ago soon after getting married and frequenting it whenever the pockets felt less empty 😀
This used to be one of our favorite places and not just for its proximity to our home.

After moving away from the locality, I somehow never made it back there until the recent invite enticing me back with a meal so alluring, that I really needed no luring. A meal which apart from being a dim sum, soup and tea festival, also turned out to be a Dim sAam fest with the chef’s innovative mango Dim sum being the star of the show !!!

Mangoes as we all know, are the flavor of the season and having dined at enough mango festivals this time, it refreshed both the mind and palate to know that there still were untried ways of relishing the regal fruit !!!

We tasted a fair mix of veg and non veg, with the Vegetable Bao, Steamed vegetable dim sum, Steamed pokchoy and mushroom and the Shanghai spring onion cake in the former and the pork Xiaolongbao, Prawn har gao, Steamed chicken and prawn sui mai, Crispy prawn cheung fun and Pan fried chicken guotie from the non veg.

The Shanghai spring onion cake with its circular flaky pastry ensconcing the chewy spring onion, was quite a favorite and from the non veg, the soupy Pork xiaolongbao, the Cheung fun and the eternally beloved Prawn har gao, were what appealed to me.

Veg –

Non veg –

The stunning steamed Mango dim sum crafted by stuffing ripe mango bits into a dough made by using the help of egg yolks for greater softness, was clearly the winner of the day. Sweet, squishy and very very Man’gooey !!!

Tea laden kettles interwove themselves in between dim sum servings and steaming cups of Lychee tea, Jasmine tea and Green Sencha washed down our meal.

Soups were offered in Veg and chicken variants and we had the Spicy lemon coriander soup with chicken and then we threw a mild tantrum and wangled out a Hot and sour soup with Sea food 😀

When the chef accompanies you at your meal, one does not get away easy and hence apart from the actual Dim sum offerings, we were also served the main course despite our protests of being too full.
Chef Selvaraj made sure that we ate up our portions of Veg fried rice, grouper fish and Chinese greens, like good children 😀 and then rewarded us with a fascinating class on how to craft Dim sums.

Beginning from the dough made mainly from Wheat starch and potato starch, we witnessed skill in action as various shaped Dim sums were pleated into place in moments, right in front of our captivated eyes !!!
Steamers large enough to cook any one (or two) of us, then performed their part and minutes later we had our Dim sums ready.

Well the day was not done as yet, as we were further pampered with a dessert platter that awaited us at the table, with ice cream, honeyed fried noodles, a date pancake and sliced fruit.

The Dim sum, soup and tea festival is on until May 31st, 2017 from 12:30 pm – 3:00 pm and priced at INR 1000++ per person.

For more pictures see My Facebook – Vivanta by Taj – Memories of China-Dimsum lunch

May 20th, 2017