Shoot-out at Ling’s Pavilion, Colaba

I still can’t believe that I hadn’t been to Ling’s Pavilion after spending a decade at Mumbai. The Sassy Fork took me there one day.

Since then Ling’s has become my favourite Chinese restaurant in the country and probably one of my favourite restaurants overall. And I have discovered that all my friends were either people who loved Ling’s or fell in love with it after I introduced them to it. Ling’s has spoilt us for all Chinese restaurants at India since.

Today, Johnny our favourite waiter there, marvelled at how seamlessly we ordered. Not the usual chaos that follows when large groups come to restaurants. To start with, there were no vegetarians. As Johnny said, “I am allergic to vegetarians. And they argue over broccoli, corn, mushrooms…. too much.’”

By the way if any of you are from the 80s then the name Johnny might remind you of this song:

As I told Johnny any one of us could have ordered today and yet we would have all been satisfied. That’s how connected our group of ten were.

I have written about Ling’s before but had never photographed the food with my new camera. Plus the lighting there is a challenge. So I took the camera today. The results were quite satisfying barring the first shot of the prawns.

So what follows is a bit of a photo post.

 

Chilli garlic prawns. A great starter Sassy Fork introduced us to

A very authentic Hainanese Chicken Rice. You have to book this a day in advance though

Pork soup dim sums. A great discovery through our friend and Ling’s addict @qtfan (twitter). You have to add vinegar through the hole on the tap. A Chinese phuchka?

 

Foo yong or Chinese omelettes

 

Pork belly with bean curd and shitake mushrooms. The dish of the day

 

Pan fried noodles… never liked it any other restaurant after we tried it here

 

Owner Baba Ling (in black) & Johnny supervise the pot rice being assembled

  

Roast duck with plum and chilli sauce. Looked deceptively dry but was incredibly juicy

Red snapper in oyster sauce… ho hum. Like a Bollywood blockbuster. Big, colourful… forgotten once you step out

And for those who wonder how I don’t explode after all this food, taking photographs when the food arrives cuts down on your eating time you see.

Goopy Bagha at Ling’s as Soumik puts it. Photo by Gaurav Sharma

Our group that day and don’t miss Johnny and my portrait

By the way, was in the press today, Hindustan Times Mumbai edition

And my interview came out in the very popular Bengali food blog … Cook like a Bong

Thanks Sudeshna and Kalyan

Click here for the interview