A very different Chindian

For the last few years it seems that PR8 has been working overdrive to promote "4 hands" collaboration between kitchen teams, sometimes with very different cuisines. At times it almost appeared to me that nothing was out of bounds and the crazier the better. This cultimated in a joining together of Forum Restaurant (富臨飯店) and Chaat. I was not a participant and, honestly, was somewhat skeptical of the results. PR8 was, of course, adamant that it was genius. But as the old Chinese proverb says, "A dog cannot spit out ivory from its mouth (狗嘴裡吐不出象牙)".

Now that Chef Manav Tuli has set up Leela, there is a new collaboration with a Chinese restaurant - this time with Yong Fu (甬府), one of my favorite restaurants in town. Regardless of whether the idea did actually come from Chef Manav or Chef Liu Zhen (刘震), I will always blame the hare-brained idea on PR8...

Tonight was meant to be a preview of the actual event so a few of us guinea pigs were invited and placed in the private dining room at Leela. I did ask PR8 whether there would be any bitches in the room, but he wasn't very forthcoming beyond giving me a couple of names he knew I wouldn't have issues with...

The menu looked pretty long, so I was glad I had a light lunch in preparation for the onslaught tonight.

Bollinger Special Cuvée - good acidity but pretty simple and flat on the palate. Later on this showed a little bit of Chinese salted plums.

Fish skin chaat with lime and chilli chutney (炸魚皮配印度青檸檬甜酸醬) - fairly decent. The pomegranate seeds, lime and chili chutney all added a nice bit of fruity flavors to the fried fish skin.

Sea conch slices with chettinadu sauce and peppers with crispy onions (醬椒螺片) - OK laaaaaah... There was just a bit of heat, and those strips of "crispy" onions were, in fact, a little chewy.

Yellow bean pig's trotter jelly (咖喱黃豆豬手凍) - the presentation looks interesting... but not sure why the deep-fried curry leaves were presented as decorative garnish instead of being added to the dish.

Unfortunately I found bits of bones from the pig trotter in mine. Not something that should have happened, obviously...

Baked samosa with century egg and eggplant paste, onion chutney (皮蛋茄糊手卷) - anyone who has dined at Chaat during Chef Manav's tenure will instantly recognize "the cone". I really enjoyed the onion chutney but it was all the way at the bottom of the cone, so unless one shoved the entire cone into one's mouth in one go, it wasn't possible to have a complete mix of all the different parts such as the finely diced century eggs at the top and the eggplant purée in the middle. Honestly, I didn't "get" this dish.

Cold brew Longjing Tea (冷泡龍井) - we were given this as a palate cleanser before heavier dishes were served.

Ningbo-style eel paste spring roll with tamarind sauce and caper chili raita (寧式鱔糊春卷配羅望子醬) - Chef Liu has been serving up freshwater eel spring rolls at Yong Fu, and this now has Chef Manav's Indian touch added.

Unfortunately, the spring roll was very much on the greasy side tonight. What's worse was that instead of actual freshwater eel (鱔糊), we now had a eel paste, whose flavors were completely overpowered by the combination of the tamarind sauce and the raita. Honestly, if I hadn't been told that eel was part of the dish, I never would have known.

2023 Pascal Jolivet Blanc Fumé - nose was very flinty with lots of tropical fruits and stone fruits. More ripeness here than expected.

Fermented yellow croaker nilgiri korma with bean curd (青咖喱豆腐皮燒發酵大黃魚) - we were warned about the "strong" flavors coming from the fermented croaker which, we were told, had been fermenting for eighteen months. So a few of us were mentally conjuring up images of Tony Bourdain eating hákarl, or my memories from years ago of trying to swallow hongeo-hoe (홍어회) with its strong ammonia flavors at a client dinner.

The reality, though. was that I really enjoyed this dish! Yes, I could taste the stronger flavors resulting from fermentation a little more in the middle of the croaker fillet, while the edges where thickness tapered off were a little more crispy after pan-frying... and therefore those flavors were well-masked by the browning. Not sure why this was served with strips of bean curd skin (百頁) but maybe this was meant to be a "fish noodle"... That nilgiri korma (नीलगिरि कोरमा) sauce, though, was AWESOME! The fragrant of the curry leaves and the fragrance from the browned fish skin just complemented each other perfectly, and worked to tone down the fermented flavors of the fish. This was the best dish of the meal up until this point.

Indian dosa, lobster meat, hairy crab roe with coconut chutney (椰汁蟹粉扒龍蝦球) - I looooove dosa (दोसा) and when we lifted the cone, the lobster cooked with hairy crab roe was revealed.

This came with coconut chutney on the side which, for some of us, turned out to be the night's MVP. In fact, at some point I simply scooped this chutney on the dosa and just enjoyed this combination with the flavors from the curry leaves. So good.

While the lobster with hairy crab roe was tasty, adding the coconut chutney just turned into something so much better - a fusion of Indian and Shanghainese flavors. I couldn't stop eating this... and of course the kitchen sent us a few more portions than we had stomach space for.

Chinese yellow wine (雙鍋花雕) - this was so, soooo rich and sweet! I absolutely loved how unctuous and sweet it was on the palate. The nose was very lovely with plenty of savory and fermented notes along with a hint of smoke. I could drink this all day.

Yellow curry braised cuttlefish with potato, served with naan bread (黃咖喱土豆燜墨魚配印度烤餅) - apparently cuttlefish was not an ingredient Chef Manav was used to working with, but he enjoyed tasting it at Yong Fu. This was decent, but from a flavor perspective I didn't see it as a combination of Indian and Ningbo/Chinese.

Laccha naan (लच्छा नान)

The cuttlefish itself, though, was pretty damn big. Just look at how thick this slice was!

At the real event next week diners are meant to choose either pork or beef. We got to try both.

Baked pork rib with dried bamboo shoot paste and crumble (筍麩菜焗豬排) - as someone who grew up on Shanghainese cuisine, I had never seen 筍麩菜... which is apparently made by cooking shredded bamboo shoots together with preserved leafy mustard (雪裏蕻), and is a specialty in Ningbo cuisine. It's now a paste-like rub on the meat, garnished with some chopped chilis.

What's not to like about pork ribs with this much fatty goodness?!

Baked beef chop with dried bamboo shoot paste and crumble (筍麩菜焗牛排) - now we have the same "barbecue rub" on beef. No, Manav is definitely not a practicing Hindu...

As tender as any beef that Manav has ever served me.

2020 Clos Venturi Le Clos Rouge - the nose was very minty with lots of fragrant and exotic spices. So interesting. But also had metallic notes.

Mapo tofu with sturgeon and beef bone marrow biryani (麻婆龍筋牛骨髓焗印度飯) - from the outside, this looks pretty much like the "standard" beef bone marrow biryani from Leela.

so here's a good example of how the two chefs have combined elements from their cuisines into a single dish. The biryani from Manav now had some added elements from Chef Liu, including the sturgeon bone marrow in addition to the beef bone marrow that's already been mixed in.

But I certainly did not expect to have mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐) thrown in... Ningbo cuisine isn't known for being spicy and mapo tofu isn't from the region, but I guess they wanted a spicy element that's Chinese...

I did like this dish a lot. The chewy bits of sturgeon marrow was more obvious than the gooey beef marrow lending their richness to the rice, and I appreciated the spicy and fermented bean flavors that I wouldn't normally find in a biryani. The different types of seeds on pastry top also added some nice fragrance.

Chinese mustard greens (魚湯兒菜) - I don't think I had ever had baby mustard (兒菜) before, but as a variant of mustard greens (芥菜) the flavors of the stems are kinda similar.

Hawthorn and snow pear tea (山楂雪梨飲) - the standard drink before dessert at Yong Fu, and something to cool our system before dessert.

Ningbo sesame glutinous rice dumpling with sugared osmanthus in masala chai (印度奶茶煮甬府寧波湯圓) - just about everyone loves the glutinous rice dumplings at Yong Fu, yours truly included. Tonight they no longer just come in a bowl of flavorless hot water garnished with a couple of osmanthus flowers, but in a bowl of sweet masala chai (मसाला चाय).

It's so interesting to have the sweet and fragrant black sesame paste inside mix with the strong spices of masala chai. Happy to do this again and again.

Was this an interesting evening? Yes. Interesting to see two chefs who don't speak a common language try to work together and combine elements from two very different cuisines to create something unique. Honestly, though, most of it didn't really work for me. For many of the dishes - especially everything before the croaker - I just didn't see the point. The main courses fared better, and I think everyone's favorite dish was the lobster with hairy crab roe - which itself needed the coconut chutney to make it truly special. I could understand why some thought the last few dishes were too monotonous and just got heavy-handed, but I was just happy to have dishes that lit up my taste buds.

Anyway... very grateful to have been used as a guinea pig, but sometimes these collaborations can seem too contrived. I know chefs love challenges, but there are instances where one plus one is just one... or less.