Pre-Independence Chinese restaurant

For the records, this restaurant has been in existence since 1945, serving authentic, now Indian Chinese, to its patrons. When it started it was closer to the Gateway of India, though not far now but behind Regal Cinema, Lings Pavilion is a place we went to ring in our Diwali holidays.

The egg shaped entrance, opens with a sliding door and your greeted to a small bridge, over a pool having lots of real fish. We preferred to climb up on the mezzanine floor to get a top view of the entire restaurant. As we sat down, the over enthusiastic captain who has served the place for decades dawned on us and started suggesting us what to eat. He was very clear that we (Indians) will not like the authentic Chinese, in his words it is all steamed and no spice used. No choice left we went by his suggestions, hot and sour soup for two of us and chicken meat balls for starters. For my vegetarian friends they ordered Imperial rolls, made of potato and shallow fried, went well with chilly chutney.

As for the main course we wanted to order kun pao chicken but the captain (remember the over enthu one), said we should try the Red Cooked Chicken. It is a combination of egg fried rice and lot of schezwan cooked shredded chicken gravy. The vegans ordered American Chopsey. The egg fried rice was good and so was the gravy. However, the chopsey which was served was steamed vegetables, it was immediately returned, for replacement came the Hakka noodles. It made for a good meal.

The serving was quick, i guess Chinese food is anywhere served quickly so no points for that. The USP of Ling's is the dark China World ambience's, quality of poultry and food. I am told the things to eat is sea food and Pork. But since we don't have those taste buds we stick ed to poultry.

The show stopper, was the mud cake, a gooey chocolate caked served with vanilla ice cream. We liked it so much that we ordered one more. If we had ordered the third one am sure that too would have melted inside within minutes.

My verdict----Go there with an empty stomach as they have huge portions. Price is reasonable and it also serves alcohol. They have a special dessert but the guy making it is on long leave so, try your luck.

 

More Indian than you think

Last year on Dussehra, my wife invited her ex-colleague, working in a Global News Corporation, for lunch. The middle aged business editor lived in Bandra west, while we lived two stations down, at Santacruz. As decided he was too come around 1 pm for lunch, so i called him to given directions but instead he replied he will be there on time, using Google maps. I was pleasantly surprised, as my present residence is in a crowded area and often my relatives need detailed directions, to reach. However, around half an hour, after the call ended, our guest landed at our door step.
Lunch was not something special, but what we Indians eat on Dussehra day, lentils, mashed potato, roti, rice and Shrikhand for desserts. Our guest, eat all with curiosity and did not mind eating somethings directly from the bowl, as we do many times at our homes. The London manners of new cutlery for every food item were not seen in our guest, he quite adjusted to our living. As for the taste he liked the food a lot and especially the home made shrikhand.
After tea our guest announced that he wanted to go and see the burning of Ravan, near Khar masjid and he and my wife again following Google maps, reached the place where the effigy was to burn. Later i was told that he enjoyed the sounds of Nashik dhol, people playing with gulal and the crowds spirit gathering at the burning area. Overall it was a very different kind of an experience, completely unexpected from an born and brought up in Londoner.