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I do not wish to slight his compatriots, but, according to me, Bombay’s best Chinese chef at the moment is Chie Len Shiesh, known to diners as Chillian. I have followed his career and eaten his food since his Frederick days. (Frederick, of course, was the great training ground for Chinese chefs, among them Nelson Wang, who got off the Howrah Mail, with Rs. 28 in pocket, and walked straight into the Frederick’s kitchen).

After Frederick closed, Chillian moved on to Sanju’s, then Mandarin, where his sui mais, Chinese paos fluffed with soft meats, and crabs in a particularly piquant garlic sauce, were greatly admired. He had disappeared from the scene for a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to find him the other day at Subash Wali’s Oye-Chi, an interesting Oriental restaurant in the Haveli complex at Juhu Beach.

Oye-Chi opened a couple of months back, and it prefers to describe itself as an Oriental eating house, since besides Chinese it serves Thai, Japanese, Taiwanese and some Korean food.

So you may spend an evening deciding between such exoticas as miso soup, tofu stuffed with prawns, a squid pate, papaya salad, red pumpkin bhajias, shrimp omelettes, plus regulars such as roast chicken glazed with soya and honey, breaded pork cutlets and spare ribs, all prepared with a generous use of rice wine, black mushrooms, beancurds, some lemon grass, some fermented bean paste.

Let me first tell you how to reach the place. Go down Linking Road and drive all the way to Juhu Beach. Then, as you take the final turn on to the beach, right there, on the corner, is the Haveli complex, plenty of parking space. A notice says children under eight not allowed in the restaurant.

Sensible, I think, they mess up the place, disturb the concentration of eating good food. A ramp leads to the first floor, a waitress in a Chinese costume welcomes you into a comfortable dining area filled with rosewood furnitures imported from China.

A cold towel, refreshingly eau de cologned, and jasmine tea, complimentary, follow, and a menu shaped like a Japanese fan Madam Butterfly. This is when you should request the presence of the chef, for his expert advice, though Krishan Narang, Oye-Ching’s CEO, is equally knowledgeable.

Down below, in the open-air Haveli, the ghazal singers are singing away under palm trees with silver-painted trunks, but you are cocooned in your and sound-proofed in your airconditioned restaurant. Concentrate on the food. Order the Som Tam salad, shredded papaya, raw, with a peanut dressing, Thai style, very healthy, Rs. 70. Or the corn nuggets, with grated coconut and rice powder, in a sauce of cucumber.

The sauce is particularly recommended, it has crushed peanut, red chilli, a solution of sugar and vinegar. Rs. 80. If you are a little adventurous, then try the pate made out of the ink fish. That’s squid, I think its literal translation from Japanese is ink fish.

The squid is chopped, minced, steamed, then chilled, so that it emerges in solid blocks, which are again sliced and served cold, like cold cuts, with Chinese greens and brown sauce. It tastes like squid, but without the effort of chewing and chewing into it. Rs. 120. There is another cold starter, it is a series of omelettes, pressed in layers. On the menu it is called egg roll, its merit lies in the delicate fabric of the layers.

More unusual, and popular with the Gujaratis of the Khar-Vile Parle Scheme, is the pumpkin bhajia. The pumpkin is a little raw, to keep it crisp, it is cut in thin strips and batter fried, large dollops of pumpkin in a little batter. There are Chinese sauces arranged on the table to dip into. I would go for the mint sauce.

I recommend the entire seafood section, at prices ranging from Rs. 300 to the Mandarin Fish at Rs. 380. The Mandarin is a pomfret, minimum half a kilo, which makes it a big pomfret. At Oye-chi, they serve it nice and crisp, batter fried, done in an in-house ginger sauce (ginger, chopped spring onions, garlic, chilli, mixed with hot chilli oil), Rs. 380.

All the sauces are in-house, made fresh from one service to the next. Sauces are Chef Chillian’s great strength, they say. He also does a whole mackerel in Japanese style, soaked in a vinegar and sugar solution, first steamed, then grilled, garnished in a soya-vinegar-honey sauce. And there is a hot pot of prawn, crab, squid, the meat of surmai, stewed with Chinese vegetables.

You eat it with chopsticks, pick up a different piece each mouthful, then a vegetable, which has absorbed the combined taste of all the seafood in the pot.

And if you are a pork eater, try all the pork offered. The spare ribs, soya and honey glazed and practically boneless, the stir fried tenderloin, the minced pork with black bean paste, and, of course, the staple Chinese sweet and sour pork, the meat heavy with fat (not the lean meat they now serve in most restaurants), deep fried, nice and crunchy on the top, with cucumber, onions, tomato, carrots. You can’t go wrong.

Finally, the noodles, which, I consider, are the ultimate test of a Chinese restaurant. At Oye-chi, ask the steward for the Yam Mein, which must be the softest, freshest noodles in town. You don’t have to fry them, you don’t have to cook them, just boil. And serve natural, or with a little chopped green stalk of a spring onion. Ask for a tea spoon of garlic wine vinegar (Premium Red Wine, made in USA, sold in Singapore) to pour on it.

- By BusyBee
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