The challenge is simple.
Mumbai.
Random tiny Chinese Restaurants.
One American Chopsuey.
Every week.
Week 2
Location: The Golden Fork (Oshiwara)
Order: Chicken sweet corn soup, American Chopsuey, fresh lime soda, Thums Up
So now this place looked tiny and dingy from the outside, making it the ideal next stop for the Chopsuey Challenge. On entering though, it seemed like a pretty decently done up restaurant with nice little lampshades (highly tempting to steal for home), and two waiters. I should probably not include the furnishing and the waiters in one sentence, but believe me, there was good enough reason to do that.
The order was taken fast enough. We were starving and thirsty, and specially asked for the drinks to be brought in immediately.
We waited. And waited. The hunger made the wait seem longer, but I do think they were on time with the food.
But that’s the problem.
They got the soup.
No drinks.
We called the waiter and reminded him about the drinks. Now here’s a problem I seem to face with a lot of waiters. They start nodding halfway through your sentence, and suddenly their eyes are glazed and concentrating on the kitchen door or a table on the other side of the room, and you know you’ve lost them. So while the waiter heard “Fresh lime and Thums Up”, I’m really not sure whether he heard what to do with them.
So we waited.
The soup was removed.
No drinks.
We called waiter number 2. Who nodded after the first two words itself, and headed back to the main door. Not his table. Not his headache. Clearly.
The food came.
No drinks.
We concentrated on the couple behind us who were trying to concentrate on each other waiting for their food and drinks. We wondered if he was aerating the drinks himself, however gross that sounds.
And then he emerged, victorious, our knight in shining armour, with a tray full of drinks for all the tables. A collective sigh of relief went through the restaurant. The supposed bar was finally open. The fresh lime was placed in front of us. The Thums Up was shown to us, then slid out from right under our noses and displayed on top of the cupboard, for us to drool over, while he served fresh lime everywhere else. I could half imagine Akshay Kumar doing a super dive across the restaurant for it, but alas, us mere mortals, sat there and waited in-stead.
The sweet corn soup was standard, so was good. The chopsuey itself, I don’t really feel like writing about. It just wasn’t right this time. The noodles were a little too thick. So eventually, in-stead of the tangy-sweet taste of the sauce, all that was left was the floury aftertaste of the noodles. As for the sauce itself, it wasn’t sweet, and that turned me off completely. Just a few things that I wish Chinese restaurants would keep in mind when making American Chopsuey:
- It is supposed to be sweet. Sugar is one of the ingredients.
- It is not supposed to have chunks of tomato in it.
- An omelette on top is usually a better topping than a sunny side up egg, specially when the yolk starts leaking all over the chopsuey. But that’s more of a personal preference, so I don’t hold that against anyone.
Overall, the chopsuey wasn’t to my liking.
But that’s ok, not all chopsueys can match up to perfection now, can they?
American Chopsuey trivia of the week: Did you know that you’ll barely ever find American chopsuey in the Chinese restaurants in America?
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