A little over a week ago, I was invited to Yauatcha at 1 MG mall in Bangalore (Nope, not the Michelin-starred one in London) to sample and review the fare from their on-going Dragon Boat Festival. The menu is built around Zongzi and is offered with a variety of fillings. For the uninitiated, Zongzi is more popularly known as the sticky rice dumpling - sticky rice stuffed with various fillings and wrapped in a leaf , it is then either steamed or boiled.
While I waited for the first dish to be served, I tried out the Citrus Spritz, a cocktail, on the menu. Combining the flavours of vodka, dry vermouth, lime and Chandon Brut, the cocktail wasn't particularly great. I've never been a big fan of spritzer(ish) cocktails in general; this one didn’t help change my mind. The cocktail was quite bitter, lacked the freshness that one would normally associate with a spritzer and wasn't good when paired with the food that was served.
I started off with the Lamb and Pine Nuts Dumpling, tender lamb with a sweet soya flavour was the plus point of this dish. The pine nuts were soft and offered nothing in terms of flavour or texture. The Pork Belly with Shiitake mushrooms had strong flavours of both ingredients, I do wish the pieces of the pork were larger in size, and would have pushed this dish to the top of my favourites. My favourite for the evening was the Chicken Dumpling that came with Cashew Nuts. While it may the familiarity of the flavours of chicken and cashew when it comes to an Asian meal, this particular dumpling stood out of the pack. I did go back for seconds on this one.
The Chicken and Prawn dumpling was a bit disappointing with the flavour and aroma of the prawn completely taking over the entire dumpling. I personally found this a tad too dry and had to dip it in some chilli sauce to make it a little more palpable. While the prawns themselves were nice and crunchy, the chicken didn’t add any value to the dish. The vegetarian section was a tad disappointing. I had heard great things about the edamame and vegetarian duck dumpling, but found the taste a bit too sweet and the texture quite soapy. The asparagus one wasn't something to write home about.
Post copious amounts of sticky rice, I was looking forward to some relief in terms of dessert, and that came in the form of the Wine-soaked water chestnut and mango cake with Sauvignon Sorbet. Great presentation on the dish with the sorbet standing out in terms of flavour. The mango cake with the crunchy chocolate base was blissful. While it wasn't something that pushed the boundaries in terms of flavour or innovation, the dessert was comforting and hit all the right places. It is without a doubt, the hero of the festival.
The festival is on till the end of June, and is offered along with the regular menu at Yauatcha. My recommendations would be the Chicken and Cashew Nut Dumpling, followed by the dessert. I give the festival a 2.5/5.
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