With the winter turning on its chilled charm, it is the perfect time to start a meal with hot dumplings coming straight out of steamers. And if you are ready to try a variety of them head to Asia! Asia! Asia -Street BBQ and Buffet in Sector V.
The South Asian themed restaurant, that opened a few months ago, is celebrating the flavours of these countries with a month-long dim sum festival, starting from December 20.
The restaurant is located above Rang de Basanti dhaba and focuses on street-style cuisine from eight countries — Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia.
The décor and the ambience too add up to the street-style theme.
The festive special menu offers a variety of dumplings, few of which are their popular serves — cream cheese dumpling (steamed potato starch dumplings filled with cream cheese), mixed sea food dumpling (a mixture of finely diced fish, squid and prawns filled in dumplings) and steamed Roasted pork bao (with a stuffing of marinated oven roasted pork which is filled in a yeast-risen dough and steamed).
Thai Golden Bags
A view of the dining space at Asia! Asia! Asia! Street BBQ and Buffet in Sector V.
“Dimsum is a staple Asian food and every country in Asia has a tradition of dimsum of some kind. They may go by different names — dumpling or dimsum or momo or sui mai or gyoza — but ultimately it is some kind of protein inside a casing. They are integral to the whole Asian experience so we wanted to organise a festival dedicated to them,” said Abhimanyu Maheshwari, founder & chief executive officer of Zing Restaurants, of which AAA is a part of.
This dimsum festival is part of their Table Grill Buffet Menu. The unlimited table grill buffet menu includes skewers from the robatayaki, dimsums and baos from the steamer, stir fries and golden fries, main course, desserts and a complimentary Raaamune (a carbonated Japanese drink).
From Monday to Thursday, the vegetarian table grill buffet costs Rs 735 while the non-vegetarian buffet costs Rs 840. The respective weekend charges are Rs 788 and Rs 893 respectively.
They have also added some new preparations to the festival menu. From the vegetarian selection, there is Thai Golden Bags. It is a wonton preparation of Thai-flavoured mixed vegetables which are wrapped in wonton sheets in potli shapes and fried. It is served with sweet chilli sauce.
A non-vegetarian addition is Chicken Roulade in Spicy Soy, in which raw chicken marinated in garlic, onion and herbs are rolled in cigar-shaped wonton sheets and steamed. These roulades are topped with a spicy soy sauce.
The dessert section also has an addition of chocolate dimsum.
“This festival is for people to know about the different varieties of dumplings available and try them. Usually we could only offer selected dumpling items but this festival will allow us to present a variety of them. We will keep the flavours mild but at the same time they will be prominent. We will incorporate flavours like kafir lime, basil and black beans in them,” said Chef Somir Das.
The restaurant was initially opened in March but had to be shut due to lockdown. It was re-opened in July.
“These are uncertain times. We do not know what is going to happen in the next month so there is no right or wrong time to start. We planned this restaurant before the pandemic but then we had to push this back. By the time we again started working on it and opened, the second Covid wave hit us. So we just have to carry on,” said Maheshwari.