After being back from Kasargod, I was craving some Chinese and so headed straight to Oriental Spice restaurant at Kuravankonam, Trivandrum… The place is so far my favourite spot in Trivandrum for everything from the Orient… So, this time, went for their Lung Fung Soup, their Dragon Roll, on being suggested by the waiter, their Tiger Prawns in Singapore Chilly Sauce and then finally their Hot Chocolate Fudge Sundae for dessert…
So, the first to arrive was the Lung Fung Soup… This is a pretty filling soup consisting of a somewhat thick and mildly spiced Chicken broth thats loaded with pieces of Chicken and Egg-White drop, along with vegetables like Carrots, Green Beans, Celeriac Stems, Mushrooms, Cabbage, Ginger, Garlic and Coriander leaves, seasoned well with Salt and Pepper…
This is one of my all-time favourite soups and is something that I order every time I see it in a menu… It tasted clean, as in all the favours of the ingredients distinctly visible and all the ingredients including the Chicken in it cooked perfectly with the vegetables remaining crispy as always… This is definitely a soup I would recommend…
Once I was done with the soup, the Dragon Roll arrived… When ordering, the waiter informed me that it consists of 6 pieces of Spring Roll having a Spicy Chicken based filling… What arrived was essentially the same served with Hot Garlic sauce and some juliennes of vegetables including Carrots, Cabbage and Chinese Spinach as shown in the pics below… The filling consisted of minced Chicken, Coriander and Szechwan Chilly flakes, seasoned with Chinese Five Spice powder…
Essentially, the 6 pieces of Spring Roll looked like they were individually made as mini-Spring-Rolls… I felt that each had more of the pastry than the filling and I wish there were more of the filling in it to make that ratio balanced… In-spite of the bad pastry to filling ratio, the roll actually tasted good as the spices of the filling did indeed come thru… The combination of the Spring roll with the veggies and the spicy and sweet hot garlic sauce turned out to be great… Only complaint as I said is that I wish it had more filling in it…
Along with the Dragon Roll, I was also served the Tiger Prawns in Singapore Chilly Sauce… There are essentially four ways, by which they serve Tiger Prawns here and thats either Deep Fried and served like KFC, or fried and sautéed in a sauce… Among the choices of sauces available, I went for what they call their Singapore Chilly sauce… This sauce, as mentioned by the waiter is a sweet and spicy sauce… How it arrived was as shown in the pics below… The fried Tiger Prawns were seen sautéed with carrots, onions, mushrooms and bell peppers in the Singapore Chilly Sauce… The Singapore Chilly Sauce typically consists of Chillies (Szechwan or Thai Bird or both), Sugar, Salt, Ginger, Garlic, Seasame Oil, some Rice wine vinegar, some Lime juice and some Chicken Stock as well in it…
First of all, the Tiger Prawns were cooked perfectly and there was a generous portion of 6 whole Tiger Prawns in it… However, I do wish it was not batter fried like how it was because, since its sautéed in the sauce, the batter ended up being soggy and that texture is not something that I like having… Other than the typical Singapore Chilly Sauce that I mentioned above, they seem to have added in some Soy as well as seasoned the sauce with the Chinese Five Spice powder quite generously… The vegetables appeared to be crispy and then to have it with the juliennes of the raw vegetables sprinkled on top felt absolutely divine to have… What I did miss though was some noodles/fried rice to go with it, which I didn’t get because, from my previous experience, I have always seem them serve way more than how much I can eat in them and so, decided to stay away this time… Overall, its my current favourite prawn based dish… My only suggestion to the Chef is to ditch the idea of coating the prawns in corn flour batter…
It is not always that I order dessert at a place like this but since I had a bad case of craving for Ice-cream and Chocolate, I went for their Hot Chocolate Fudge Sundae… It arrived at the end of the meal as shown in the pics below and its basically a glass consisting of their Vanilla Ice cream (Two sizeable scoops) served with a lot of roasted Cashew-nuts and then pretty much drenched in the Hot Chocolate Fudge…
First of all, the Ice-cream felt to be incredibly rich and creamy with a strong presence of Vanilla… The roasted cashews gave the crispy and crunchy element to the sundae… The Hot Chocolate fudge was incredibly rich with the flavour of Chocolate and milk with the sugar caramelised in it… It looked quite glistening and there was no shortage of it in the glass that I could have equal amount of the ice cream and the fudge in every bite… Overall, one of the best Hot Chocolate Fudge sundaes that I have ever had which I am looking forward to have again when I go there next…
So, altogether, it was a great lunch… Oriental Spice has so far never ceased to amaze me with their dishes and I hope to go back again to explore their menu further… 🙂
