Burma Burma @ Cyberhub, Gurgaon

The day started with beautiful light drizzle in the morning and a downpour that looked lovely from the windows of my air conditioned office. It seemed like a nice day to step out for lunch and that gave me the perfect opportunity to check out the new restaurant in Cyberhub, Gurgaon, Burma Burma.

A quick research prior to my colleague and me embarking on our food quest brought a surprise...Burma Burma serves only vegetarian food. To hardcore non-vegetarians like my colleague and myself, ordering vegetarian-only meal outside is a deal-breaker...usually.

This time, however, our curiosity got the better of us and we decided that we would go with an open mind and no high expectations.

This is what we walked up to:

I had always been curious about the ambiance and I must say that I loved what they have done with the space.

Here's another view of the interiors.

It certainly made us strangely happy to see our table graced by the clear teapot.

Coming to the food, we ordered the Raw Mango Salad, which was amazing in the way the sweet and sour and tangy hit our senses. The closest thing I could relate it to was our good ol' bhelpuri but so much better! 

We also got brave and ordered the tamarind-coconut mocktail, which took a few precarious minutes to settle on our palates. However, perhaps paired with the raw mango salad, the overall tanginess was a bit much.

The next to follow was the soft steamed buns with brown onion and chilli paste, which was slightly sweet rather than hot or spicy. Nonetheless, we loved it!

The third dish we ordered was coconut rice with spicy peanut sauce. This dish, sadly, disappointed us for 2 reasons. One, the flavors were strangely bland and, second, I chomped on a tiny piece of stone. Yes, stone. I brought it to the attention of our server who promptly took away the "sample" and came back back with,"the chef says it's a piece of raw rice." I'm not sure if they thought it was a better response but I was not taking it. They offered to replace the dish but we politely declined and they didn't charge us for the barely eaten food.

PS: on our way out we noticed that nearly every table had raw mango salad. It clearly is their best seller and worth trying in the first visit for sure.

Overall, the experience was good though I might need a bit convincing to go anytime soon.

Ratings:

Ambiance: 4/5

Food: 3.5/5

Price for two: INR 1500

Yum Yum Cha @ Cyberhub, Gurgaon

I have the good fortune of working in a location where there are some top-notch restaurants just few feet away. It is but natural that a lot of the official lunches, dinners and dates happen in this amazing hub of eateries. and after having tried and tested almost all of them in my last 2 years in my current location, I was waiting for a long time for a new restaurant (worth my time and interest) to open up...and my prayers were answered recently.

A couple of months ago, I saw a banner announcing that Yum Yum Cha was opening up at that location soon. I was super excited, to say the least. I had been waiting FOREVER to try their much publicized dumplings and sushi.

Once the restaurant opened, so did the stories about the loooong wait to get a table. I was able to beat the lunch crowd by reaching at Yum Yum Cha for lunch at 12:30 pm. Perfect timing.

The restaurant is clearly a small but the decor and good lighting (natural and artificial) makes the place bright and spacious. Not to mention their bright origami (metal) decorative items that I absolutely adored.

And the Menu has good range of items and nice pretty pictures of what we could expect and their description. For a visual person like me, and those who were not very familiar with more authentic Japanese and Chinese flavors, this is a very safe place to start. 

My friends and I immediately got down to business. We ordered their Crystal Duck dumpling (Peking duck, hoisin, cherries), Rainbow Vegetable sushi (I know. I cringed too at the thought of vegetarian Sushi but it was for the vegetarian friend who had never tried sushi) and Red Thai curry and rice.


I had some concerns about the dumpling, I mean cherries and duck as a combination didn't exact conjure the best images but once I look a bite of it, I was stunned by how much I loved it! The balance between the salty pieces of duck and the sweet ripe cherries merged beautifully. Each bite was flavorful and the sweet-salty juices burst through the thin dumpling skin. Look at those beautiful dumplings below:

Moving on to the vegetarian sushi, quite frankly, I have had better and I have had it at Yum Yum Tree. I think  the joy for me was a little less since it was vegetarian sushi and there is limited magic that wasabi can do here. Nonetheless,  the sushi novice was thrilled by how wonderful it was. I will be going back for more sushi (non-veg, this time) to make up my mind about it.

The Red Thai curry was one of the best I have had in India. The spices were balanced just right with the coconut milk such that the spices didn't overpower the dish and neither did the coconut milk hijack the same.

One thing we did not anticipate was the good helpings. the 3 of us found ourselves feeling full but we just HAD to have something sweet at the end of a very satisfying meal and hence we ignored our newly acquired muffin tops and daringly ordered a New York Cheesecake.

I think I fell in love when I saw the Cheesecake accompanied by some sweet mango pulp. Once I had a bite of it, I was ready to write an Ode. No kidding! The smooth slightly sweet cheesecake and the rich mango pulp had me dreaming about it for days afterwards.

What tried the entire experience together was the very friendly bill that we received for a very filling and satisfying meal.

My ratings:
Price for 2 : INR 1500
Ambiance: 4.5/5
Food: 4.5/5

Dimsum Bros. - Ambience Mall, Gurgaon

If one wants to try food more evolved than the roadside Momo stands (I have nothing against them, by the way), I would certainly suggest a trip to Dimsum Bros., Ambience Mall, Gurgaon The food will not disappoint you unless, of course, your taste buds have been corrupted by years of Chindian food that is usually served in "Chinese" restaurants in India.

Once you enter the restaurants and your senses settle to the sights and sounds that is quite opposite the the loud and busy scene just outside the restaurant, you will want to stick around. So find yourself a nice Earth-brown or Ivory chair, relax, and get ready to experience the magic.

Dimsum Bros has a fairly decent collections of drinks (Rose and Cucumber Vodka, to name just two) to chose from but before you sip your favorite poison, keep in mind that dimsums are traditionally small serving of food served with green tea and Dimsum Bros. will serve you the complementary tea along with your order. So hold the vino for a little while and savour the food like it is meant to be eaten.


Take your time to chose from the list of 35+ varieties of dim sum - steamed, baked, shallow and pan-fried - and do not hesitate to be greedy. Each dimsum served here, thankfully, tastes different from the other.  If you think that the quantity does not justify the cost, remember that this is food art and it does not sell by the dozen.

So now let me recall some interesting bits from the menu. The "Play boy" or Bunny and Pear-shaped dimsums are a delight to the eyes and the Prawn Har Gow, Beijing Chicken dumpling with home made vinegar were really good.

If you are looking for something other than a dimsum, fear not, there are other things to chose from the menu like the Prawns tempura that add a light crunch to the slightly hot Wasabi Mayo and the stir fried chicken in Saki wine that melts in your mouth before your teeth get working on it---Fabulous!

This post, unfortunately, does not contain any pics; no thanks to my comp crashing a few days ago. *grumble* However, the good news is that I'll be making my third trip there soon. I have to. I have not yet tried EVERYTHING on the menu.

Avg. cost: Rs.1600 for a meal for two.
Rating: 4/5