'Asia 7' restaurant has a pan-Asian twist

The Palladium is ostensibly one of the fancier parts of the Phoenix Complex and the restaurants certainly look the part — there’s Jiggs Kalra’s Punjab Grill on one side and the Manchester United Cafe Bar on the other.

However, sadly, it must be said that eating in a mall is eating in a mall. It just doesn’t have the cachet that a standalone eaterie does.

So, if you have to cater to more than the hungry shopper, you need to offer that little bit more. Luckily for the restaurants, Palladium is not all haute luxury, so there’s a good chance that the people who shop here will eat more than one lettuce leaf a month.

The restaurant would, perhaps, look the part if it didn’t overlook the shops or have a glass frontage. The divider with faux plants in the middle of the room is a bit peculiar and makes the place seem smaller than it is.

Asia 7 is a pan-Asian (oooh, that phrase again!) restaurant, which means that it offers more than just Chinese food. To test it, we ordered a prawn tempura (Japanese) and a chicken sui mai with garlic flakes (Chinese).

The tempura was just golden fried prawns which you get in every Chinese restaurant — the batter did not have that thin lightness that makes it special. It was a bit stodgy to be honest and the giant prawns were left uneaten, even by four people.

The sui mai was good enough, if not spectacular. The garlic gave it a little kick.

The starters having been dealt with, we moved on to stir fried prawns (Thai) and a bulgogi (Korean). These were much more of a success, with the bulgogi being the star. The stir fried prawns were light, highlighted by kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass, and had a slight, sweetish tinge to it, a clear winner. But it was the bulgogi which won hands down.

Strips of tenderloin are marinated and preferably grilled or pan-cooked with mushrooms and spring onions and so on and make a spicy but light dish. It comes with crisp iceberg lettuce leaves and some fresh chopped garlic and you are supposed to wrap the beef with the lettuce so the leaf adds freshness and cuts the spice. However, it was equally delicious with sticky rice.

This was the highlight of the meal. Asia 7 still needs a little work, it seems. We ended it with darsaan — honey noodles with vanilla ice-cream — and that comes from some part of Asia, or at any rate is very popular in Chinese restaurants in India.