Back to Gourmet House after a while… I had heard that they have changed their menu and my friend was hoping to try something Korean and having remembered seeing them in their menu before, we decided to have lunch this time over there and here we are 🙂
The menu has indeed changed… All the Korean dishes that I had seen earlier is gone… The only item left was the Korean Fried Rice… So my friend decided to get that and based on my advice chose to go for Kung Pao Chicken along with it… I was in the mood for Ramen especially remembering the ramen I had from this place before and so, went for the same… As for starters, we both went for a couple of their Sushi options, namely the Osaka Soul Roll and the Spicy Chicken Katsu Roll… They all arrived as can be seen in the pics below…
So, lets first talk about the Sushis and start with the Osaka Soul Roll… As per the menu, this Sushi is made with Prawns, Avocado and Salmon… It was served as can be seen in the pics below along with Wasabi, Gari (Pickled Ginger) and the Soy-Vinegar dipping sauce… As expected in Sushi rolls, the Nori Sea Weed was also there… Coming to the taste, I must say that compared to last time I had Sushi here, the rice felt a bit on the dense side… Prawns were clearly fried but not Tempura style like before.. The Avocado tasted fresh and the Salmon added another layer to the taste… The rolls appeared to be topped with what felt like Mayo and a Creamy sauce both of which seemed to work with the rolls… As always, the combination of the Gari, Wasabi and the Roll along with a few drops of the dipping sauce seemed to work well… Seasoned just right if you ask me 🙂
Next lets talk about the Spicy Chicken Katsu Rolls… My understanding of Sushi was that it was by design supposed to be made with Fish… So, it was surprising to see a Chicken option… When I asked the waitress, she informed that its made with fried chicken and is an option for people who are new to the concept of Sushi but is not comfortable about the idea of trying uncooked fish… But then again, they used to have a Prawn Tempura Sushi for that which I was planning on recommending to my sushi-virgin friend as a safe option to try… Anyways, still went for the Chicken sushi out of curiosity and as the safe sushi option for my friend… Turns out both of us liked the Osaka Soul Rolls instead of this one… Personally I felt that the crust of the Katsu coupled with the extra dense rice made this Sushi a bit unpleasant to eat compared to the Osaka Soul Roll… The Chicken was sadly overcooked which further added on to the difficulty of chewing down the sushi… As for the taste, it wasn’t spicy at all even though the name says otherwise… So, obviously, the Gari ended up being the favourite item on the plate for me…
After we were done with the starters, the mains came and lets start by talking about the Ramen… I have had Ramen from here before back when they just started serving it… However, I was very surprised at how different the ramen I got this time looked… First, they served the broth separately which was not a problem I felt cause it makes the whole ramen easy to share… However, sadly, I didn’t like this ramen at all and the reason was that I felt that the broth was not flavourful at all and just had too much taste of Soy Sauce to the point that was impossible to taste anything else… The individual pieces of vegetables and prawns were nice as in tasted fresh… But the broth was intolerable for me and so I ended up discarding it… It was indeed disappointing as the ramen I had before was so good… I seriously hope they go back to the old version asap…
Next up is the Korean Chicken Fried Rice… To be frank, I couldn’t understand what made this fried rice Korean and not just any other regular hakka style fried rice as I couldn’t really taste any difference… I even asked the staff to make sure they didn’t make any mistake but they insisted that it is indeed the Korean Fried Rice… So, I remain perplexed about the same… However, if I ignore the “Korean” from the name, I felt that it is indeed a fine and flavourful Chicken Fried Rice which was well made with quite a generous portion of Chicken…
Last but not least was the Kung Pao Chicken… Kung Pao Chicken is one of my favourite Chinese inspired dishes that technically comes under the Chinese-American cuisine and is characterised by its sweet and savoury taste that just works with any kind of Fried Rice, Noodles and Breads in my opinion… This was the first time I saw this dish in the menu here and also because my friend hadn’t seen it ever, resulting in us having it… Regarding the taste, I must say that it was quite different from the other versions of Kung Pao Chicken as in, the the flavour profile was dominated by Chillies, Garlic and Soy and had much less sweetness… The Chicken was perfectly cooked and the vegetables were indeed fresh and crunchy as expected… So, the conclusion is that even though I have had much better versions of Kung Pao Chicken before, this was still a fine dish to have with the Fried Rice… No complaints…
That’s it for now… I was left with mixed feelings as some of the items were nice or at-least decent while others ended up being intolerable for me personally… I am not sure whats going on over there as The Gourmet House used to be what I felt to be one of the very best places in Trivandrum especially to get Asian Food… All I can hope is that they would get their act together as soon as possible and go back to being at the level that they used to be in…
