Thursday 19 January 2012

China Kitchen- An exotic oriental fine dining experience

The menu at China Kitchen is extremely classy, prepared with high quality ingredients, choicest produce, cooked delicately in small portions giving attention to details. 
They not only taste good but look good too.

It is hard to believe that China Kitchen is open since less then 10 days and is already on its way to success and a talk of the town and already full for dinners. This over 45 seating capacity restaurant is almost full most nights of the week. No, not just another Chinese restaurant in town, China Kitchen is truly for an oriental fine dining experience.
Wasabi Prawns

Located in the elite neighborhood of Clifton block-4, I was thrilled to enter a typical Chinese courtyard complete with life size Chinese murals on the walls, statues and artifacts on the walls and lovely dark solid wood wooden tables. The actual seating area is equally tastefully decorated with oriental style pottery and Chinese artwork hanging on the walls.


Tofu Chips

Stuffed Crab Claws

 The real treat to Asian food lovers is their menu, created by one of the four partners that conceptualized and are running this place. China Kitchen offers unique and exotic Chinese cuisine that carries completely different and authentic oriental flavors at the Chinese dining scene of Karachi. Over the years I have fond memories of tasting a range of Asian and Oriental cuisines during my travels to Asia Pacific cities, and here, at the China Kitchen, these tastes are right there, all exquisitely created finest food.
Sweet Chili Chicken
  The menu at China Kitchen is extremely classy, prepared with high quality ingredients, choicest produce cooked delicately in small portions giving attention to details. They not only taste good but look good too. As I was shooting in the beautiful courtyard of China Kitchen, an array of these artistic creations kept coming from the kitchen; I tasted these as I clicked on them. Starting from appetizers, their Wasabi Prawns were completely out of this world; delicately crispy yet succulent prawns coated by a smooth velvety sauce garnished with dried chilies. A flavor completely new from the regular Chinese restaurant menu we get. The Cantonese style Stuffed Crab Claws is a crispy fried delicacy coated in a light paste of crabmeat and shrimps.

Crispy Shredded Beef
I am not a beef lover, but well, had to literally stop shooting for a while to sink my teeth into the delightful Black Pepper Beef Steak with Ginger and Spring Onions. These are stir-fried succulent chunks of beef tenderloin marinated in crushed black pepper and topped with oyster pepper glaze. 

Lobster in Black Bean Sauce
Black Pepper Beef Steak

The other entrée that I tried was Crispy Shredded Beef, it was equally palatable with crispy and deliciously marinated beef strips served on a crispy nest of noodle, my favorite entrée includes is Lobsters, served over noodles cooked in black bean sauce. The signature specialty created spectacular dish of the Sweet Chili Chicken was a great highlight, wok fried, strips of tender chicken in a China Chicken Special sauce. Homemade sauces are the secret of these unique tastes, the chefs does not use any commercial sauces for any of their dishes. All preparations are free from Ketchup, MSG or artificial food thickeners.  
Sweet and Sour Soup
 
Ghazala, who is one of the restaurant owners, and the brain behind this concept, lived for more then six is years in China and got first hand experience of Chinese cuisine. Another of their partners has had a complete education of Chef from Malaysia. No wonder they have done a great job of bringing these aromatic and exotic flavors on our table, awakening our senses, specially stimulating the taste buds.



Vegetable Wonton
The restaurant can be easily categorized for elite fine dining, thus more on a pricey side with artistically presented smaller portions, so, well one can think about it for special occasions only. At this time the restaurant is offering set menu for dinners only roughly A, B and C menu which change weekly. Depending on the number of items in it, the menu per head’s cost ranges from anywhere between Rs1100/= and Rs3000/= with a minimum eight items on the menu served. It is best to have the reservation made prior to visiting.

China Kitchen has very tastefully filled the gap for the Chinese Fine Dining in Karachi. 

Vegetable Fried Rice
Review Written by: Farah Kamal
Photography: Farah Kamal and Shahrukh Mughal
 More images of the food from China Kitchen

Farahs Visual Treats

The Write up  by the author on Express Tribune Blog 

Note: Restaurant owners/chef/advertisers, if you want your restaurant/food/new menu reviewed/blogged and photographed please contact me at farahkamal23@gmail.com


4 comments:

  1. Farah and Shahrukh! This blog is so luscious it makes me want to lick the screen! Great work, Thanks...
    -Caren in PDX

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  2. Thanks Farah, Great work. We hope you liked the food too :)

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  3. Hi Farah, Thanks for the great info and yummy pics, I will def. visit the place soon. Do you know if the do Black bean sauce, I had this sauce in London and since then i am big fan of it, looked every where in Karachi but couldent find it :(

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    Replies
    1. Hey Fahad, thankyou for appreciating my work. For me as well the the flavour on Was wasabi was something I remember from Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia, but could never find anywhere in Pakistan. Was thrilled last week to taste it in CK.
      Keep checking by blog for more food write ups and images.

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