Venue: Lodhi Colony
Date: 23 July 2016

Our latest stop in our series of Saturday lunch was Ping’s Café Orient at Lodhi Colony on the lane that connects Meherchand and Khanna Markets.

They serve Asian street food cuisine and have a longish menu.

We tried various dishes and our recommendations include “Angkor’s juicy chicken mince salad” – Mildly seasoned, the Minced chicken salad had lot of fibre and flavourful fresh taste.

From main course we ordered “Borokay tiger prawn in butter peer garlic” and “Peking duck pancake”.  The prawns were juicy and well cooked. However, we would have been happier if they had not added such a lot of chillies.

After burning our tongues from the above dish, the “peking Duck Pancake” with its sweet dips is just what we needed. This dish was very photogenic. The slices of duck meat were cooked to perfection and we made rolls using the pancakes (more like tortillas) and the accompanying salad. Duck is not part of our usual diet. But not only the meat, but the braising kind of cooking style, the sweet sauces and the veggies on the side made this dish worth remembering.

From desserts, we strongly recommend “Bitexo’s sticky banana pudding with homemade coconut jaggery icecream”.  The pudding was mild, filling, full of texture and warm. The aroma of coconut mixed with jaggery gave the ice cream a unique flavour. Plus the hot pudding with the cold ice cream made a heady combo. We were so smitten that we ordered a second one. This once goes in our Hall of Fame! We also tried chocolate cigar and we didn’t like it one bit.

From the drinks menu we ordered “Apple and ginger collins” and a “Lemongrass cooler” that was a concoction of apple cider, sweetener and pieces of apple. This was a little pungent initially. However, after a while, the juice from the apple slices got infused and then the drink became very pleasant – something that would open up the appetite. We also ordered “Mango and Basil smoothie”. This had some sort of oats base. The flavour of mango did not overpower the freshness of basil in the drink.

The décor, we guess, is on the lines of a lane in an Asian flea market and the barber’s set in front of the wash rooms are oh so cool!

The place is smallish and that may be a bummer if you have a noisy party seated close by. But the food compensates. A fuss free unpretentious experience!