Today was a day my parents decided to buy food for lunch and as usual, I was in-charge of figuring out what to order for home delivery… So, today I decided to try from the Zam Zam Restaurant at Kulathoor near Kazhakuttom, a place which I never had the opportunity to visit as by the time I could come around to it, the Covid-19 situation started… Ever since the pandemic season started, me and my parents pretty much developed a new habit where we end up having low carb meals once in a while where when we buy food from outside, we stick to just the Soups and Starter section of the menu and skip the main course… So, this time, again was one such day and what we got this time was two Chicken Soups namely the quintessential Sweet Corn Chicken Soup and Manchow Chicken Soup and then got a portion of their Dragon Chicken to go with the soups… As for my very vegetarian mom, she was not really hungry as she had a late breakfast and so she chose to have get Pineapple Honey Mint Salad this time and an Ice Cream sundae which she didn’t let me taste or take a pic of today and hence its skipped from this post… 🙂
So, lets begin by talking about the Sweet Corn Chicken Soup… It arrived as shown in the pic below… The soup appeared to be a thick one having Sweet Corn, Egg Drop, Chicken, Coriander, Spring Onion and Celery Stick… Coming to the taste, I must say that the soup was too thick and starchy for me, but still I felt all the flavours were balanced and clean and the seasoning was spot on too with the ginger, garlic salt and pepper… But I would recommend this soup only if you are into the thick starchy kind of soups, which personally I am not a fan of…
Next up is the Manchow Chicken Soup… This is usually spicy and slightly sweet soup thats actually my favourite from the Indo-Chinese cuisine and is my home remedy for common cold and throat problems and I do cook it myself sometimes, though I skip on the thickening part… This soup tends to be loaded with Chicken, Egg, Vegetables including but not limited to carrots, cabbage, chillies, onions and tomatoes along with Garlic, Ginger and herbs in a slightly thickened Soy based broth and then heavily seasoned with Pepper as well as salt to taste… There is also a practice of serving fried noodles on top or to the side with this soup, which clearly was missing here as you can see from the pic below…
Regarding the taste, as expected, the soup was indeed spicy but the slight sweetness and a slight our component (from the tomatoes) help balance it out and make it quite enjoyable infact… The spiciness came from both pepper, green chillies and also red chilli flakes that they appeared to have added in this soup… The Vegetable content in the soup was basically Onions, Tomatoes, Carrots and Cabbage along with a lot of ginger and garlic where pretty much each spoon full was having quite a number of pieces of the same… The flavour of garlic appeared to be the foundation of the soup’s flavour profile… The broth had a nice and rich flavour of both Chicken and Soy along with the flavours and fragrance of Coriander and Celery and Green Chillies as well… The Chicken and egg were cooked perfectly and the vegetables were indeed crunchy and flavourful as well… Overall, I think this is one of the best versions of the Manchow soup that I have had anytime recently… I do wish the soup was not thick at all though but compared to the Sweet Corn soup, I felt the thickness was tolerable… Loved the taste though…
Next up, lets talk about the Pineapple Honey Mint Salad… It came as shown in the pic below… Basically pieces of Pineapple dressed with a Mint chutney and as the name implies, Honey as well…
First of all, as soon as I opened the container, our whole dining hall was filled with the fragrance of mint… The pineapple tasted fresh and of decent quality… Honey appeared to provide the necessary sweetness along with its flavour and the mint appeared to cut down and balance the sweetness and the citrus component by bringing in some savouriness as well… Altogether, it felt like a nice refreshing palette cleanser…
Last but not least, lets talk about the Dragon Chicken… The Dragon Chicken is another dish from the Indo-Chinese cuisine and its specialty is its unique taste of caramelisation coupled with spicy and sweet flavours and it typically uses the Schezwan Chilly sauce along with Sweet Tomato sauce and quite a lot of Garlic and Cashews along with Onions and Bell Peppers… The chicken is typically chopped into strips and fried coated in corn flour batter and then sautéed in the sauces with the rest of the ingredients to finish… The Dragon Chicken that I got was as shown in the pic below…
Regarding the taste, I must say that I ended up loving this dish… The Chicken was cooked perfectly and was still a bit crispy on the outside… The vegetables were quite crunchy and flavourful too… The sauce was just at that right point of balance between sweet and spicy with just the right amount of saltiness to balance both… Again, like the Manchow Soup, there was a lot of garlic and its flavour was cutting thru everything… The Cashews provided more crunch to the bite and the sauce appeared to have absorbed its richness as well… Overall, loved this dish very much and I am hoping to have more of it soon…
Overall, I felt this was a nice lunch that all of us enjoyed very much… Left me wondering why I never bothered to order food from this place till now even though it has been available in the food delivery apps for months… Anyways… 🙂
