In a nutshell:An old restaurant near Churchgate station run by family who migrated from China, warm service and some really good food (very close to authentic)

 

Address & other details: Kamling

Meal for 2: 500 onwards

Cuisine type : vegetarian & nonvegetarian

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I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster

Short description- in case u r in a hurry

I heard about this place from my friend Puneet who comes here once in a while. He talked about elderly Chinese gentlemen from the family interacting with guests and that is what interested us. Hope of some good food and some good chat.

We imagined the place to be old but on reaching there we realized that it was a retro place in very good condition- retro today coz they never changed themselves much it seems.

The restaurant had both outdoor seating and indoor seating. The furniture was old and hence retro fashioned.

In a glass door Almirah there were Chinese cups and cutlery.

 

It was a great pleasure to chat with the very warm gentlemen who run this place. One of them mentioned that he was born and brought up in kolkata and that his father had migrated from china to india. We chatted about the Chinese community in kolkata and the still remaining street food market run by the Chinese – Tiretti bazar.

 

We discussed how no one uses corn flour to thicken soups in china but in gravy loving india , unless the broth is thick, many people do not like it.

 

Food was very enjoyable- for people who r used to chinjabi (indianized Chinese food), pls order carefully. There r some dishes on the borderline. If u like real Chinese food, very specifically ask for it.

 

Detailed description- in case u hv the time to njoy reading:

We started with Fishball soup. It had small sized fish balls in a clear soup that had full flavours of fish. The fish balls were soft and very good to taste. Enjoyed the crunchy greens in the soup. Rate it 4.25/5

We also had Seafood soup – it had calamari, prawns, fish and bit of veggies and mini greens. The soup was thick and it had egg in it. Flavours of seafood was very good. The seafood had perfect texture. Taste wS very good. Rate the dish 4/5

 

Barbecue spare ribs was recommended to us. It was a masterpiece of a dish. Very few people make such good pork (Chinese) dish in india. Incidentally I was in shanghai the week after I visited kamling and the difference of barbecue pork shanghai and kamling was negligible.

 

Flavours of the meat were excellent – intense and robust and the taste was outstanding too. The meat was charred on the out and soft inside. Loved it. Rate it 4.75/5

 

Chilly prawn was something we Wud not hv ordered had the gentleman recommended it so hard. The prawns suffered from suboptimal salt when we bit into it, onions were a bit high on sale. We realized in a while that the prawns and onions r to b had together. No salt in the prawn meant that it retained water and hence was soft and juicy. Superb. Rate it 4.25/5

 

Ginger fish was rawas fish with ginger – both fish and ginger retained its flavour. The fish was soft and juicy. Loved this dish a lot. Rate it 4/5

 

We also had some very good Chinese tea.

 

Overall rating of food at kamling averages out to 4.25/5

 

Wud surely revisit.