Take the dim sum out of the steamer. Dunk it in your mouth. Realise it is super hot and struggle to eat it. Then enjoy the second dim sum when it cools a bit! Right? Maybe, but when you have a curried dim sum, then it is a whole new ball game.
Nasi and Mee has been making waves in Chennai and I can see why. Promising Malaysian and Singaporean street food, the place itself is set up like a pub and the ambiance is inviting and laid back. With quirky stuff all over the walls and an almost Singapore hawker stall like feel albeit in a posh, up market set up, the place seems to have ticked all the boxes.
We were invited for the evening and were welcomed with a trio of welcome drinks, but nothing screams Malaysia more than Milo. Having a cult status in Malaysia and in parts of Singapore, the humble Milo maybe a health drink (a failed one at that) in India, but it is revered there. The Milo here was as good as the ones you get in Malaysia, chocolaty, a little dilute (since it is a thirst quencher and not a health drink) and chilled. The warm winter melon soup kicked off the proceedings and was a beautiful comforting soup, with large winter melons in a familiar Asian broth that my Indian palate was extremely comfortable with.
Then came the dim sum in question. I don’t remember having it before and so when the waiter said that the dim sum had soup in it, I was more than intrigued. I was asked to place the dim sum on a spoon,  poke a hole, let the steam out and slowly drink up the soup off the spoon and then dunk the whole dim sum in my mouth. There is a certain novelty value to the experience which over shadows the flavour of the craby soup, (yes, this is a crab soup in the dim sum).
The Nasi Lemak was the first main course to arrive. It looked very similar to the original Malaysian version, with the rice, peanuts and anchovies, but with an omelette instead of a boiled egg. The rice had the coconutty flavour while the anchovies were surprisingly and (for most of us, pleasantly) non-stinky, but the strong Belacan flavour of Malaysia was clearly missing in the entire meal. Now, this is not something that may go well with the crowd as the Belacan (shrimp paste) is what gives Malaysian food its strong pungent flavour, but there was almost no whiff of it anywhere in the meal. So this is a highly Indianised version of the Lemak. The Char Keow Teow is where I realised that Nasi and Mee is street food inspired at best and is not here to give you those flavours. A Char Keow Teow in the streets of Singapore will be a dark stir fried noodles and here it was no where close. The slightly burnt flavour that gives Char Keow Teow its distinct taste (with soy/fish sauce I think that is used by hawkers) was missing in its entirety. The Laksa arrived to much dismay as that wasn’t any Laksa curry that I’ve had. Not that I’ve had too many variations, but I simply didn’t know what it was.  The main course in general tasted excellent, but I felt like I ordered chilli chicken and was served an excellent butter chicken instead!
Dessert was definitely closer. I resisted from ordering a Chendol as I didn’t want to be served some payasam! Ice Kacang it was for me, while my friend ordered a fried ice cream. The Ice Kacang was excellent. It looked like the original and tasted very close to the ones you get in Singapore and Malaysia. It had the beans, the corn, peanuts, the green noodles and multiple flavours of ice. I should have ordered Chendol, I guess. The fried ice cream though is one of the best that I’ve in Chennai, with a crisp flavoured shell oozing out a nice vanilla ice cream. I believe they have multiple flavours for the fried ice cream.
The price point is killer. While I won’t be surprised if you asked to pay an entry fee to KNK Road in Nungambakkam, Nasi and Mee is priced extremely competitively. With most dishes priced around mid three hundred mark, a good meal for two at Rs. 1000 is doable with ease. With a nice ambiance and a street food inspired cuisine at a killer price point, Nasi and Mee should do well in Chennai. I understand that the restaurant needs to survive and do well more than making sure there was Belacan in your food, but I only wish that there were at least a few dishes (OK, at least 2 or 3) that could have retained the essence of the wonderful street food culture in those countries.

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Food pairings have become surprisingly common in Chennai these days. After the wonderful Perfume pairing at Taj, the outstanding Masters of Food and Wine at Park Hyatt and the Chinese - Japanese battle with Johnny Walker at ITC Grand Chola, this time I was invited to Westin, a part of the Starwood that owns multiple hotel brands, came up with a night of Food Pairing with Sandeep Arora, who is considered India's first and only Whiskey Connoisseur. Like my friend, also a tee-totaler said, "the way Sandeep talks about the 12,15 and 18 year old whiskeys, I feel like drinking one myself," the night was fantastic and I was able to enjoy it without having to enhance my liver!

EEST, the Asian restaurant at Westin hosted the dinner. The restaurant has a nice ambiance with dark interiors and a nice centre dining space! After the wonderful initial talk by Sandeep, we sat down for dinner which opened, surprisingly, with a seared scallop amuse-bouche! While amuse-bouche, is usually not such a delicacy, this one was and was gulped down in no time!!!! The next course was the Chinese-Japanese platter, a combo of two dim sums and three sushi. The dim sums were very average and I expected a much better one at Westin, but the sushi was excellent. The salmon, the tuna and the prawn sushi, all of them were good enough for my palate. This was followed by a minced chicken salad that was quite different for me, but not completely convincing.

The main course had two options for non vegetarians, the Salmon and Tenderloin and so both of us ordered different main courses so that we can taste the two. Out of the three tenderloin pieces, one was overcooked and chewy but was more than made up by the remaining two which were cooked well done, but was still reasonably soft! The Salmon was excellent and being served with a nice salad, it was the better main course and I almost regretted having the beef! Yes, he refused to share beyond my tasting piece. We finished of with a dessert platter, which for me was the best dish of the day! The coconut platter had an excellent coconut ice cream, a fantastic coconut crepe and water-chestnut in coconut cream! Slurp!!! We were given a nice return gift hamper, but unfortunately, while waiting for my car, I left the hamper in the lobby, so I only have the photo of the hamper. I wish I can get my hands on that hamper again!!! It looked lovely!

The best part of the night for me though, was the conversation with Sandeep Arora. It was great to hear his stories of travel and experiences with food, medicine, detox and the likes and we connected on the common interest of wellness! I am looking forward to hosting him at my place and serving him tea!

EEST is the Asian restaurant at Westin, Velachery. 

CHAO, a very nice, South East Asian cuisine restaurant in T. Nagar, called a bunch of us from CFG over for a Chef Special Dinner. What this aims to do is to give people the option of having an exclusive dinner with stuff from out of the menu! With a small private dining space in the basement which can seat about 20 people, the restaurant is contemplating this 'by-reservation-only' model which gives you exclusivity, privacy and mostly good food! In a place with a cuisine like CHAO, where there is a real danger of every dish tasting very similar, the Chef's' dinner came as a pleasant surprise.

The names of the dishes do not matter because you will not find them on the menu! If you decide to have an exclusive dinner for a team, then you will have to decide on the menu with the chef based on your budget. Our evening started with a fantastic Soup Ayum - perfect flavours of the East Asia blended in smoothly, the soup was excellent. The starter arrived with the typical crispy corn and spinach, but was not typical was the flavour - I cannot describe why I liked it, because I don't know, especially being a vegetarian dish, but I liked it. The stir fried chicken was very very nice. Then came another dish that was a stunner - Bok Choy, essentially a type of cabbage, but the chef had it on plate that had so much garlic, I thought I was going to stink for eternity, but how wrong I was. In spite of what looked like the amount of garlic to feed India for a day, the garlic flavour was just right and I have no idea how he did it - and for his part, he was very clear that he was in no mood to share cooking techniques! Excellent stuff and this is the third photo!

Then there was a Bang Bang Chicken with Noodles, an excellent prawn gravy, coconut rice and a braised broccoli with tofu (no photo) which I thought was excellent. Dish after dish, we were served in small but right portions and every single time, we were left impressed. The evening ended with an excellent chocolate mousse which had a tinge of orange and strawberry and was a fitting finish.

The evening was excellent, catching up with friends after a long time and one where both the food and the company held equal attention and when that happens, you know it was great. CHAO starts these private dinners at Rs 1500 and it can go up to however deep your pocket is! Don't try to call in the house numbers and ask for this, I don't think they will be able to help. 

Ok, this post is pretty long! I am trying to match the claims with expectations, so read at your own risk!!!!

Almost walkable distance from my workplace, I have been seeing the board of CHAO, FINE DINING everyday on my way back. Somehow, I don't like the words FINE DINING on the board of any restaurant, but that is my personal view. I believe that once you enter, you should be able to feel the food, the decor and the service, instead of implying it. And more often than not, the restaurants like that disappoint.

But when the owner invited a bunch of us to try out the restaurant, almost everything that is fine dining was present. The interiors were done very very well. The quality of the interiors is there to see and everything from the cutlery to the decor was done with a lot of care. And this place easily qualifies for one of the best decor in a stand alone restaurant in Chennai!!! There are two levels in the restaurant and the basement is slightly bigger and if you want to host a party, this could be great, provided the restaurant allow it, I am not sure if they have thought about it. How the fine dine will be maintained in a party is questionable right now, but I would certainly work this out if I was them!

The cuisine is typically East Asian, so there is influence from Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore! The Chinese that we fondly call 'Indo Chinese' is generally more Singaporean than Chinese, so I could relate to them a lot better, I love Thai and having had some of the best dishes in Thailand, I could relate to that too, but I have never had Vietnam food and I don't think we were served anything from Vietnam, so I will leave that out.

I said almost everything was fine dine, because, typically a fine dine restaurant (especially one that has fine dine on its name board) is a restaurant with a dedicated meal course! That was completely missing and that was something I knew is rather difficult in Chennai, but I was hoping, at the back of my mind, that I would get, but alas.

The food itself was good, very good in parts!!!! Since we were 15 of us, there was lots of food, so I will try to do justice to all of them. The green mango salad, a superb Thai dish has been replicated brilliantly here! Two thumbs up for that! The satay prawns, the grilled prawns and the chao thai grilled fish were all outstanding!  The wasabi prawns, though tasted good, was more mayo prawns with a tinge of green than wasabi. The name disappointed, the dish was not bad! I love potatoes and so the devil potato was something I was munching through the dinner, but it did not catch the attention of the fellow vegetarians, while the corn in basket seemed to have The devil chicken was bad! Both the chicken and the veg dimsums were average!!!

The Singaporean Bee Hoon, which is fine rice noodles with bean sprouts was outstanding, while the sambal fried rice was not far behind. The jasmine rice was served with Thai Green curry and I definitely thought that it did not make the mark, but it was not bad at all!!!! We had two lovely desserts - a waterchesnut in coconut milk which is my all time favorite Thai Dessert, but there was a pumpkin pudding that totally caught my attention. Maybe it reminded me of my late grandmom's vatalapam (details later), but that dish was lovely. We shamelessly asked for multiple helpings. There were many more dishes that I cannot recall, but I know that in general, the food here was good that night! Yes, not fine dining good, but certainly good!

To put it in a nutshell, this is a restaurant with good food, fine dine decor and fine dine prices!

The 15 of us had a ball of a time, but I would want to go back there and try more Vietnamese cuisine in a more relaxed setting.

CHAO is located on North Boag road, which allows only one way traffic, so you could come from Residency Towers or come from Mount Road, take Vijayraghava road and take a right. You will find it on your left!

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