All Stirred & Shaken

All Stir Fry, part of the Mars Group, at the Gordon House Hotel was always somewhat of a blank spot for me. Housed inside the pristine white walls of the boutique hotel, I tended to give it a miss and charge straight to Café Churchill or Basilico with blinkers firmly on. Well, last Sunday a friend of mine convinced me to give a try and so we landed up there.

The restaurant is on the ground floor as soon as you enter. Push the wooden door open and you shall be greeted by (the customary) South East Asian ladies. As we didn’t have a reservation, we were asked to wait for a few minutes, but then were given a corner table (my preferred table in any restaurant). The restaurant gives you a feeling of space and is well-lit. Designed to resemble a Chinese street kitchen, it has long tables with well spaced out chairs and benches. A pair of plastic chopsticks wrapped in a black table napkin also comes with a fork and knife. Thank god! Going through the somewhat reader-unfriendly menu, we decided to have the Pepper Mushrooms and Baby Corn for starters and later move on to their specialty, the wok. More on that a little later.

The Pepper Mushrooms and Baby Corn came steaming hot and was quite a treat. Nothing extraordinary, but perfect for these rainy days. As the name suggests, the dish had all the mentioned ingredients – nothing more, nothing less. After greedily devouring the starter, we queued up in the open kitchen to be handed over our wok. The Quick Wok, as they call it, is basically a Chinese buffet of sorts. You take your wok to the counter and pick up whatever appeals to you. There’s a choice of three-four noodles, ranging from Udon, the thick Japanese wheat variety to super-fine rice noodles known as moo fan reminiscent of Vermicelli to Mee Pok, flat green Chinese noodles. There was one more variety which I couldn’t recognize, considering I’m not the foremost authority on the noodle culture. (I’m still a big fan of Maggi 2-Minute noodles though!) You are advised to pile your bowl first with noodles, then the veggies and finally the meats. The reason behind that is when the chefs finally dump your collection into the wok, the meats go first and get well cooked. Heap your bowl with noodles, an array of vegetables and a choice of meats like pork, chicken salami, plain chicken, beef, prawns and egg. Once you’re done with the not-so-easy task of selecting what you want in your bowl, walk over to the live counter. Another set of decisions awaits you. This time about what sauce you want your selection cooked in. There are around 9 sauces to help you (or confuse you, depending on how you look at it). Things have been made a bit easier by classifying the sauces into mild, hot and very hot. I went for the mild Canton sauce with crushed peanuts as the condiment of choice. If by the end of the whole experience, you’re still confused, worry not. You can always return back and make a new selection. Experiment as much as you like. That’s what you get for Rs. 350!

A quick jumble by the expert chef resulted in a piping hot customized wok. I must admit, it did taste very good and somehow quite healthy, what with all the veggies. The trick, I think, is to load your bowl a little at a time and experiment and find out what combination you like best. It might take 3-4 trips to the restaurant, but then that’s not much for a personalized dish! You can actually boast of having a signature dish!

My vegetarian friends also were very impressed with the spread and also the fact that separate utensils are used to cook vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. We wound up our meal with the honey fried noodles. Crispy fried noodles (the flat Fettuccine type in this case) with honey and sesame seeds with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. The crisp hot noodles work well with the chilled ice cream. You end your meal with the complimentary Fortune Cookies, which are always a welcome gesture.

So, all in all, it was a hearty experience. And that, I think, is the key. At All Stir Fry it’s not just about the food, which is very good. It’s about the overall experience of whipping up your meal without the normal chores associated with it. They also have dim-sums and satay. Will try that the next time. Yes, there will be a next time for sure.

In their own words, the restaurant aims at giving patrons a ‘spirit of the street kitchens of the Orient…with the philosophy of fresh healthy food and an innovative dining experience including specialties from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Mongolia, Korea, Tibet and China.’ I must say they live up to their promise.