If you ask me to list my all time favourite spots to eat, especially from Trivandrum, The Gourmet House at Pattom would definitely show up… As far as Trivandrum is concerned, this place is in my opinion the only place where one can find decent Asian Food especially the food other the Indo-Chinese run of mill stuff thats seen pretty much everywhere in some form or the other… It has been a while since I visited the place and thanks to my friend craving for some asian food and asking me for suggestions, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce her to this place and here we are… 🙂
First of all, I liked the fact that the place was well maintained and looked exactly like how it looked back when I visited the first time… The menu has clearly changed with quite a number of new additions… But sadly, most of the items that we wanted to try were not available this time ? But I was able to try a couple of items that at-least I had never tried before and as for my friend, its her first time being here and so everything is new and so its okay ?
So, among the options in the menu, we went two soups, my all time favourite Tom Kha Gai which I suggested she try when she asked me and also their Dim Sum Soup which is one of the new additions to the menu… Then we went for their Summer Rolls Chicken as the starter… As for the mains, sadly none of the items we wanted to try was available and so among the ones that were available, we chose the American Chopsuey which used to be my favourite during my childhood… After the meal, we asked for a couple of their Hand Churned Ice Creams as dessert as well… The following pics show how each of the items were served…
So, lets talk about the individual items and start with the soups… First to arrive was the Dim Sum Soup… While ordering when I asked the waiter about this soup, I got to know that its pretty much similar to the Wonton Soup but with Dim Sums instead of Wontons with the Dim Sums of-course made with Chicken… It was as can be seen in the following pics with some noodles along with the broth as well… Coming to the taste, the broth essentially felt like a spicy and incredibly flavourful Chicken Broth with lots of Ginger, Herbs including Lemongrass, Spring Onions, Cilantro, etc and Green Chillies and taste-wise I got reminded of the Tom Yum broth but without the Tomatoes and Red Chilly Paste… The noodles and the Dim Sum were perfectly cooked and seemed to have absorbed the flavours of the broth… The Chicken Dim Sum was just like any other having minced chicken meat along with the herbs and was seasoned well… Overall, felt like a fine soup to have… 🙂
Next up was the Tom Kha Chicken or Tom Kha Gai… I had written about this soup previously, and its basically a Thai Coconut Milk based soup thats flavoured with Lemongrass thats as can be seen in the following pics… Coming to the taste, compared to previous version, this one was a lot lighter and had more flavour of Chicken in it… Overall, its a nice, rich and flavourful soup that still remains as one of my all time favourites…
Next up was the starter we had ie, the Summer Rolls Chicken… I have had the Prawns version of the same previously that I liked and wrote about… Its the first time having the Chicken version this time… Essentially, the only difference between the two versions is indeed the main ingredient ie, in this case, the fried Chicken Strips… I was expecting some shredded pieces of blanched or grilled chicken in this but instead the Chicken Strips was indeed breaded and fried like how usually we see in places like KFC, but here the breading was much more crunchier… Seasoning was all spot on and it seemed to work well in the rice paper roll along with the Lettuce and Vegetables and seemed to work well with the Sweet Chilly dip… Key point to note was how incredibly fresh especially the Lettuce was… Overall, we loved this platter…
As we were done with the Summer Rolls, they brought over the main course that we ordered which was the American Chopsuey…The American Chopsuey is a very popular dish from the Overseas Chinese Cuisine which is said to have been invented in the US by Chinese immigrants who worked as cooks in the Transcontinental Railroad and it is said to be based on the Tsap Seui which is a traditional Chinese dish popular in the Guangdong province in China from where most Chinese immigrants were from in those days… Basically the dish involves stir frying protein and vegetables quickly and then bound with a thick sauce and then served with rice or noodles… The most popular version involves serving it with crispy fried Noodles and the American Chopsuey is the version where they use a tangy and slightly sweet tomato and pineapple based sauce and then is typically served with a fried egg on top…
The one we got here as can be seen was made with Chicken as the protein and had Carrots, Bell Peppers, Onions, Green Beans, Spring Onions, Cabbage, Tomatoes in the sauce and served on top of Fried Noodles and topped with a Fried Egg… Coming to the taste, first of all, everything was cooked and seasoned perfectly… The taste that was dominating for me was that of Tomatoes and if I am not mistaken, a very slight hint of vinegar as well… The vegetables were indeed cooked thru and quite flavourful… However, a difference I felt compared to other versions of this dish that I have had before is that the sweetness was missing from the sauce… So, instead of the expected sweet and sour taste, to me, this version tasted pretty much just savoury and sour… I ended up wishing it had a bit of sweetness… Otherwise, the combination of flavours with that runny egg yolk was indeed nice to have… 🙂
Last but not least was the dessert… The Gourmet House offers homemade ice creams that are made by the old hand churning method… There were a few flavours in offer and among the ones available, we chose the Rose and also the Apple Pear versions and they were as can be seen in the pics below… First of all, I am glad that they don’t use any food colors and hence the generic color for both… Coming to the taste, both were packed in flavour… The Rose Ice Cream was loaded with Rose Petals in every bite and hence had a rich flavour of Rose along with the flavour of the Cream… The Apple Pear Ice Cream clearly had both Apple and Pear ground into it and it also seemed to have a nut component to it which felt like Walnut to me though my friend couldn’t be sure about it… Apple and Walnuts does go well together and hence left me wondering if they added the same when making this ice cream… Anyways, we both loved both the variants and are hoping to try more next time…
Thats it for now… Though things didn’t exactly go as I expected, it was indeed a nice lunch for both of us… I for one am hoping to be able to try the new items we couldn’t get this time soon… Hopefully very soon… 🙂
