Holy Basil
Radisson Blu, Road No 6, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.
Tel: 6733 1133
Meal for two: Rs 2,500
A good Beijing duck is something to keel over and die for. In fact, it was recently ranked No. 5 in a list of ‘The world’s 50 most delicious foods’. Created from a 900-year-old Yuan dynasty recipe, it’s made from specially pampered, fattened ducks, and prepared in a series of complicated steps, so that the skin is so soft and crisp, it literally melts in your mouth. A chef who could cook it well was traditionally given a rank equivalent to a minister.
The best Beijing duck is served at Beijing’s legendary Quanjude restaurant, but Holy Basil does a pretty good rendition. Their menu takes you on a tour of Asian cuisines—Thai, Chinese, Japanese—with stopovers in Myanmar, Malaysia and Korea. We went, actually intending to have a simple Japanese dinner of soup and sushi, but after looking at the menu, were seduced into ordering Chinese instead. We started with a crabmeat soup to ‘open the appetite’, as the Chinese say. We went on to the Beijing duck, following the ritual of dipping the crisp, tender strips of duck in the sweet-sour hoisin sauce and rolling them inside the steamed pancakes before popping them in our mouths. And we ended our culinary voyage with subtle green tea pancakes, stuffed with ice-cream.
We finally walked out, pleasantly satiated, humming that old Kishore Kumar song, Jatey thhe Japan, pahunch gaye Chin, samajh gaye na, which seemed rather appropriate for the occasion.